Cast out of her Scottish home when her mother dies, abandoned by the man she loves and alone in the world apart from her cousin Margaret in London, Ailsa MacLean embarks on what turns out to be the most adventurous and dramatic year of her life. From the Scottish Highlands, to Yorkshire, London and thence to De Amerley Hall in Dorsetshire, she is driven by a desire for the man she will not forsake, even when he has forsaken her.