When Howard Spurlock stole money from his uncle, he fled to the South Seas to escape imprisonment. When got there, he found himself drinking day and night to deal with the guilt of his circumstance -- he drank himself so ill, in fact, that he needed medical attention. He got it from a missionary's daughter -- and ended up marrying her. And then a change came on him, as it comes on so many men who settle down: he changed his ways and found legitimate work with a doctor in order to provide for his new family. Each day, he worried that his past would catch up with him. Could he somehow escape his fate? Or would he be doomed to destroy all that he loved. . . ?

Author Biography

Harold MacGrath (1871 - 1932) was a bestselling American novelist, short story writer and screenwriter. Also known occasionally as Harold McGrath, he was born in Syracuse, New York. As a young man, he worked as a reporter and columnist for the Syracuse Herald newspaper until the late 1890s when he published his first novel, a romance titled Arms and the Woman. According to the New York Times, his next book, The Puppet Crown, was the No.7 bestselling book in the United States for all of 1901. MacGrath subsequently wrote novels for the mass market about love, adventure, mystery, spies and the like at an average rate of more than one a year. He would have three more of his books that were among the top ten bestselling books of the year. At the same time, he published a number of short stories for major American magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Ladies Home Journal and Red Book magazine. Several of MacGrath's novels were serialized in these magazines and contributing to them was something he would continue to do until his death in 1932.