Nell LeStrange, the heroine, is torn between duty to her family and her own passion. Nell is in love with one man, but marries another. The heroine's frank discussion of her sexual attraction to her lover, and her dispassionate evaluation of loveless marriage as a form of self-sale was criticized by many critics of the day; however, Cometh Up was one of Rhoda Broughton's most successful sensation novels and was widely read.