Mark Taylor, a rough, gruff Yorkshireman, has risen from nothing to become a self-made millionaire in the property business. Now in his fifties, he has had enough and he is tormented by regrets. His health is suffering from the pressures of work, and his marriage, which has never been a happy one, is failing. His two sons have benefited materially from his hard work, but now even they seem to be set against him. He longs to return to his home village, where life was once so carefree and so happy. But there it was that at the age of nineteen he said goodbye to the one great love of his life; and so began his most painful regret of all.