When George Bolton returns home to Devon at the end of the war, Rita assumes that her childhood sweetheart will marry her as they had planned. But the boy who joined the RAF has returned a man, and a man irrevocably changed by the horrors that he has seen. Unable to settle back into the sleepy country routine, George resolves to spend a year on the family farm in Argentina, and, despite her disappointment, Rita promises to wait for him. While George is away, Max de Guinzberg, the young Jewish refugee adopted by Rita's eccentric grandmother, grows up. Tormented by the tragedy of his past, he finds solace in Rita, whom he has loved for as long as he can remember. But her heart still belongs to George ...