Eliot Warren, 'a consumptive clerk in a London office', comes to Australia for his health and takes a position as a teacher at Wallaby Hill in country New South Wales. Here he encounters a station owner's wayward daughter, Ella Norton, and other characters of the town, who are either are antagonised or positively affected by Warren's religiously upright nature. Eventually Warren is fatally struck by Dick Challis, who is jealous of Warren's influence over Ella, the woman they both love. Challis repents, and undertakes to build a school in Warren's memory.
