When John Hume leaves England and takes a teaching job at the Benjamin Thompson School in New York City, it is with the object of shedding a load of guilt that he has carried for twenty-fi ve years. It doesnt work, however, as he continues to be haunted by his old sorrow and becomes a suspect in the death of a young girl under circumstances eerily reminiscent of the incident that he is trying to forget. While coping with the tangled relationships within a deeply troubled school, he becomes involved with a much younger woman who knows nothing of his past. He faces another excruciating decisionshould he stay in New York and try to work things out, or cut his losses and return to England.