Rival to My Heart

“The most exacting, yet the most rewarding job in the world”—that was how Gail thought of her job as the only woman physician at Thayer Hospital—and indeed the only woman doctor in Beauchamp, where for three generations the Thayers had been the leading family.

It was old Marcus Thayer who had seen the industrial possibilities of the rich, riverwashed valley and began its transition from a farming village to one of the most important manufacturing centers in Wisconsin. Now, Howard, Marcus’ grandson and Gail’s cousin, presided over the destinies of the sprawling Thayer-Judson plant and its encroaching tenements.

Thayer Hospital, a formidable red brick monument to old Marcus, was a landmark on Beauchamp Heights. And the man who ran Thayer Hospital was stern, competent Cassius McCormick. Everybody bowed before Dr. McCormick, catered to him, feared him. Everybody except Gail Benton. When Gail openly defied Dr. McCormick in his diagnosis of Mr. Zayle’s baffling illness—and still later, of Reyna Thayer’s—the war was on.

To make matters worse, Burke Gentry, the man Gail intended someday to marry, had been retained as Gassius’ lawyer in the lawsuit that threatened.

Deserted by the town, the young doctor who, unlike Dr. McCormick, cured with her heart as well as her hands and mind, was to find help from an unexpected source. In a dramatic climax, Miss Pinchot brings her challenging story to a close, and peace again returns to Beauchamp.