In the sleepy Sussex village, Catherine Carew is envied by some for her ownership of the gracious Old Vicarage, pitied by others for her divorce from a philandering husband. Catherine fills her life with good works and is a pillar of the community. But in her distant university days she was a very different person. One night's indiscretion leaves her with a burden of guilt and regret that overshadows her later years. Until, out of the blue, a stranger appears on her doorstep: a young man she insists she had never met before, while dreading that this may not be true . . .