Elizabeth Stone, a respected academic, has a new lease on life. In remission from cancer, she returns to the city where she was a student over 30 years ago to investigate some little-known papers by T.S. Eliot, which she believes contain the seeds of her masterpiece; a masterpiece that centres on a poem given to her when she was 18 by the elusive Professor Hunt. But as the days pass in the city she loves and her friendship with Professor Hunt is rekindled, her memories return her to a time shadowed by loneliness, longing, and quiet despair, and to an undeclared but overwhelming love.