The elderly Squire believes the purchase of his nephew’s inheritance is virtually complete and looks forward to seeing his own son become master of Newton Priory, but he is suddenly killed in a hunting accident before the legal transaction is finalized and the estate therefore passes after all to Ralph the original heir, overturning every expectation and transforming the indebted young man into a wealthy landowner, and Ralph soon turns away from his ambiguous involvement with Polly and proposes to the beautiful Mary Bonner only to be firmly rejected as Mary sees through his shallow character and Clarissa gradually begins to understand the weakness of the man she had loved, while Neefit insists that Ralph has an obligation to marry his daughter and the Percycross election petition forces Sir Thomas to confront the corrupt practices that accompanied his own victory, contrasting Ralph’s accidental material triumph with the moral consequences faced by those around him.
