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Can You Forgive Her? is the story of Alice Vavasor and her cousins. On her father's side are Kate and George Vavasor, brother and sister. Alice and George had been passionately in love, but flaws in George's character led her to break an engagement with him. As time passes, she falls in love with John Grey, and agrees to be his wife - but his placid character leaves her longing for something of the excitement of her previous lover. This engagement, too, is broken, in part through Kate's efforts to bring Alice and George back together. But on Alice's mother's side, she is also cousin to Lady Glencora Palliser, recently married to Plantagenet Palliser, nephew and heir to the Duke of Omnium, and a rising man in Parliament. As Lady Glencora learns to look to Alice for support in the rocky early days of marriage, Alice herself is thrown into deeper doubt about the wisdom of her own choices.