John Emmerson was a lonely man. He had a wife a son friends but he was isolated from all the people and events around him by the tragedy of his past. Then he met Cissie and for the first time his loneliness eased a little. Cissie was everything that his wife Ann was not. She was warm compassionate and generous. And she was quick to sense the needs of a desolate unhappy man. But Cissie was also a young widow: poor and with a young son to support. And John Emmerson was one of the town's leading solicitors - a man of importance whose every move was watched by the local dignitaries. . .