The story is set in New York City and Charleston, South Carolina, six months after the end of the Civil War. Henry Winthrop, a middle-aged widower, begins a long journey from his home in New York City to Charleston to find a former love, Abigail, whom he was forced to leave twenty-five years earlier. Henry believes this journey will be a quiet and uneventful trip, but the trip will turn out to be quite the contrary. First, he will meet a young woman in Washington, DC named Rachel, who will turn his emotional life around. The trip will also test his courage as he faces all types of life-and-death obstacles along the way. This is a story of an age-old human dilemma. It is one lonely man's interaction with two strong-minded women--one a former lover and the other, a new passion.