Grace Marchant marries Charles Bennett at the beginning of the second world war,and loses him before she has really begun to know him-or even herself. In the five years while he is away,she makes her own life,on her own terms,and finds a new love,overwhelming and exciting in a way that her relationship with her husband never was. The return of Graces husband not dead at all,but very much alive-not only presents her with the most agonizing of dilemmas,but brings to light many things which would have been much better left in the dark...