Following the death of her husband Terry, Mrs Allen takes the vacant post of Matron at the Settlement of St Joseph, founded in the nineteenth century by his grandfather Timothy Xavier Allen to bring to the African Christianity medical attention and elementary education.

Allen has been Terry's inspiration throughout his life, though after the government took control he kept away from St Joseph's for twenty years.

Mrs Allen can understand the uncouthness of Mr Schwartz, the Government Superintendent, but the coldness of Johannes Simbele, the 'African teacher', is more than reserve. As for Dr Redman, though he is clearly good at his job, his manner is flippant, and her suspicions about his relations with Nurse Peters are decisively confirmed.

In this second novel, C. J. Driver, author of Elegy for a Revolutionary, presents a compelling and compassionate study of alturistic idealism overwhelmed by forces it cannot comprehend.