The first part of this book is a conversation between Alf Whitmore and Addie Fulton…strangers…which occurs at an airline terminal. Alf has revised part of a book, and Addie consents to listen to him read his changes to her. This part speaks of freewill and fate…and the happenings that may be effected by having an opened pathway to the just there . (the just there being God, or other ). In this first part, Alf describes a scene in Nepal, during which he seems to be emptied to a cleared pathway by an act of kindness from a child…who presents him with a wreath of flowers. At the top of this scene he gives a passing lady, one who is almost entirely hidden in clothing…Ellen Quimby…a wooly cap. The child’s kindness, and his kindness to the lady, seem to have been part of the same cleared condition.

The second part…called the Inn of the Seventh Sorrow…begins in Shanghai. Alf sees Ellen Quimby, clothes-concealed, who he met in Nepal. Here she is again…and he refers to her as a sloughing pile of dung . Then Alf goes to western China, to Chengdu, and beyond that city to the mountains, through which he wishes to walk and bus to Tibet. And…again he sees Ellen Quimby( In the mountains), at the Inn of tthe Seventh Sorrow , Here…Ellen can retain her hiddenness, or let Alf tear away the covering.