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 doesn't 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 decision-should he stay in New York and try to work things out, or cut his losses and return to England.