When Anne Majendie asks her husband about Lady Caylay, she discovers that she had married an altogether different man. She believed that she married a good and proper man. However, when he does not deny any of the allegations she's heard about him, she realizes she's made a terrible mistake. Now she must decide what to do next, for her options are not many. Would she leave her husband? What will she do if she does? And who could she find safe harbor with? It's not a decision that she can make lightly.

May Sinclair was an active member of the suffragette movement. Her best-known novels include The Three Sisters (based on the Brontë sisters), and Life and Death of Harriet Frean. The Helpmate is a novel is her commentary on the Edwardian Social Problem.