Lawrence Vane, en el apogeo de una brillante carrera como concertista, pierde la vista y no le queda nada en su vida. Habiendo renunciado previamente al matrimonio por su Steinway, Lawrence ahora decide que solo en el matrimonio habrá algún significado en su vida, y se va al este a la isla de Tahang para casarse con Paul Carron, con quien ha mantenido correspondencia pero a quien ha dejado. nunca visto. Paul es medio indio y muy moreno, pero no tiene el coraje de confesárselo. Celoso, posesivo y temeroso, la mantiene alejada de casi todos los demás contactos, preserva su engaño, hasta que una operación le da a Lawrence la oportunidad de volver a ver.
Angela du Maurier was born on 1 March 1904 in London, the eldest of three daughters of prominent actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and actress Muriel, née Beaumont. Born into a family with a rich artistic and historical background, her paternal grandfather was author and Punch cartoonist George du Maurier, who created the character of Svengali in the 1894 novel Trilby, and her mother was a maternal niece of journalist, author, and lecturer Comyns Beaumont. She and her sisters were indulged as a children and grew up enjoying enormous freedom from financial and parental restraint. Her middle sister, was the famous writer Daphne du Maurier, and her younger sister Jeanne was a painter.
Originally aspiring to follow the family tradition of acting, she planned to be an actress and spent two seasons on the stage. She played Wendy Darling alongside both Gladys Cooper and Dorothy Dickson as Peter Pan. She worked on the land in Cornwall during the war and travelled extensively in Europe. She later turned to writing, with the release of her earlier works coinciding with the publication of her sister's Rebecca and Jamaica Inn. Her works of fiction include The Road to Leenane, Pilgrims by the Way, The Perplexed Heart, Reveille and Treveryan. She lived at Ferryside, the family house in Cornwall, for most of her life.