The Orchard of Tears by Sax Rohmer

Sax Rohmer is famous for creating one of the outstanding villains of early twentieth century fiction, Dr Fu Manchu.   However, although "The Orchard of Tears" sounds like a perfect title for one of the evil Doctor's vile plots it is instead - well what - I am still pondering this.
The book, set in the First World War, concerns a captain in the Irish Guards whose life is saved by a sergeant and who then in turn brings back the dying sergeant under fire losing a leg and winning a VC in the process.   A wealthy man he determines to provide for the sergeant's widow and daughter and travels to the rural village where they live.   There he discovers that the cottage where they live is on the estate of a friend of his, a famous writer, and that the daughter is not only very attractive but posessed of great artistic talent.   He arranges for her to attend art school in London whilst at the same time persuading his writer friend to start a new philosophical/religious movement.   He falls in love with the girl but, this being before the Beatles, he does nothing about it and gets killed on the Western Front.   The writer publishes the book outlining the new philosophy to great acclaim and ends up with the girl.
This all sounds frightfully vague, not to mention implausible, but, of course, this book is almost one hundred years old, it was first published in 1918, and reflects very different cultural standards.   The important thing is that it was well enough written to keep me reading up to the end and provides the modern reader with a fascinating insight into the attitudes of our forebears.
It is available to download free from Project Gutenberg.