Even the approach of Christmas, 1913, fails to excite the restless Agnes Conway, the twenty-two-year-old manager of her feckless father's adjoining sweet and tobacconist shops. There are dark secrets in Arthur Conway's past, and these come tragically to light when Agnes's younger sister becomes pregnant by one of the notorious Felton brothers. And Agnes herself has a secret, which she knows she must keep from her father: an attachment to Charles Farrier, son of a local landowner, who outrages his own pious family by proposing marriage...But Charles is not the only man who shapes Agnes's future, for his brother Reginald makes no secret of his admiration for her; although she could not have foreseen how significant a part he was to play in her destiny...