Cheney faces two enemies-superstition and greed... Cheney Duvall has proven herself as a true doctor to those 200 brides with whom she traveled to the West. But arrival in Seattle with a string of medical successes during the voyage does not open any doors for her in this frontier town-she's "just a woman." Returning east, she finds an invitation to a remote spot in the Ozark mountains where there are no doctors at all. But she runs into walls of...

In San Francisco, Cheney-with the support of Shiloh-fights with the hospital staff of St. Francis for the fair treatment of their city's "undesirables." Then catastrophe strikes, and she discovers that none of her medical education has prepared her for such an overwhelming disaster. With so many severe injuries, who will help her?

Shiloh proposes to Cheney. Cheney's answer, however, can only be a refusal. Shiloh is not a believer, and he grows bitter over her rejection. Cheney, meanwhile, is devastated that she has allowed herself to fall so fully in love with him. The two are "wavering, driven with the wind." When they arrive in New York, the couple discovers that close friends are having second thoughts about their own marriage. Like Cheney and Shiloh, they struggle to solve...