George Dallas is the black sheep of his family. His mother, a widow, has married Capel Carruthers, a wealthy, pompous, narrow-minded bit of starched propriety. Carruthers refuses to make a home for the youth on his splendid estates, and casts him adrift on the world. George becomes wild and reckless, and moves in a set of "black sheep": men and women mostly of gentle birth like himself, who have fallen into evil ways. Chief among these are George Routh and his wife Harriet, professional sharpers, who deem it to their interest to get him into their power. Routh is a scamp by nature. His wife, an innocent girl, falls to his level through her overwhelming love for him. Routh lends Dallas the money to pay a gambling debt to a mysterious American named Deane. The style of the story is energetic, and its rapid complications make it interesting.