The miracle of healing predicted by Saint Bernadette brings to the shrine the faithful, the doubtful, and the hopeful. Thousands want to be the one on whom the Virgin's blessing falls.

Wallace develops several groups of characters simultaneously, each group enacting the battle between faith and skepticism. At Lourdes their paths cross and their fates intertwine.

Sergei Tikhanov is Soviet foreign minister and heir-apparent to be prime minister when he learns that he has muscular dystrophy. Incognito as an American university professor, he travels to Lourdes in search of a cure, despite his official Communist faith of atheism. At Lourdes he hires Gisele Dupree, a local guide at the shrine, to assist him, unaware that Gisele is looking for an intelligence coup that will take her back to the United Nations headquarters and to her paramour.

Gisele discovers Tikhanov's identity and blackmails him.

Edith Moore has previously visited...