According to George H. Thomson’s calculations in A Reader’s Guide: Pilgrimage, Deadlock takes place between October 1900 and mid-year 1901. The plot centers on the development of Miriam’s relationship with Michael Shatov, the Russian Jew she meets first as a boarder at Mrs. Bailey’s, as well as it end. It is perhaps representative of Richardson’s tight focus on the thoughts and experiences of one person, Miriam Henderson, that neither of the major historical events of this period for England — the Boer War and the death of Queen Victoria — are barely mentioned.
Chapter 1. Miriam meets Michael Shatov, Mrs. Bailey’s new boarder. Quickly, they begin a relationship based on — and almost entirely consisting of — deep conversations on intellectual subjects, and Russian literature in particular. Miriam and Mrs. Bailey find themselves confiding in each other, particularly after Miriam sits one evening with her landlady, who is ill.
Chapter 2. At the dental office, Miriam reflects on dismissing things about women that men have written. She has lunch with Mr. Leyton Orly and his cousin George. Then she visits the British Museum with Michael and they talk about Anna Karenina. That evening, he have dinner at Mrs. Bailey’s and Michael talks about his friend Veslovski.
Chapter 3. With Christmas just a few days away, Miriam looks forward to four days off. On Christmas Eve, she takes a train to the seaside town where her sister Eve is now working. She thinks about an older man who had been in love with Eve. She then stays with Harriett and returns to London, where she talks with Lahitte, another foreigner living with Mrs. Bailey. Miriam translates his lecture after she and Michael visit a German restaurant in the East End.
Chapter 4. Miriam thinks about the experience of translating the lecture. She walks and talks with Michael, arriving late for work.
Chapter 5. Months are passed through quickly. Miriam reads stories by Andreyeff (Leonid Andreyev) and looks forward to June.
Chapter 6. Miriam walks in Regent’s Park with Michael and they talk about Hypo Wilson’s reactions to her translations from the Russian.
Chapter 7. She attends a lecture on metaphysics and meets a woman named Lucie Duclaux. A few weeks later, she and Michael attend another lecture in the series together.
Chapter 8. Miriam is fired, apparently, by Mr. Hancock, who is upset at her distraction. Later, however, he relents and allows her to keep her job.
Chapter 9. Michael reads to Miriam from Spinoza.
Chapter 10. Miriam and Michael walk and talk together on a summer evening and they kiss. Later, she looks back on the moment and thinks she may be in love with him.
Chapter 11. More walking and talking. They talk about Miriam’s promise to visit the Brooms in the coming week. They attend a performance of Gounod’s Faust. The next day, Michael tells Miriam that he slept with prostitutes during his student years. She departs angrily for the Brooms, but later forgives him.
Chapter 12. The couple visit the East End and they argue over the place of women in the world.
Chapter 13. Miriam looks back on the past months and her relationship with Michael. She visits Mrs. Bergstein, a Christian Englishwoman who has married a Jew, but decides she cannot accept Michael’s faith nor ask him to give up his.