Devastated by the death of his wife, Sir Jocelyn Hewish neglects his tomboy daughter, Gabrielle, who grows up in the evocative Connemara landscape, cared for by the superstitious Biddy Joyce and educated by Rev. Marmaduke Considine, 'a gentleman of small domestic experience'. Outgrowing her wild years, Gabrielle is taken by her father on a trip to Dublin where she is attracted to a young naval Second Lieutenant, an encounter which is shattered by tragedy and ensuing mystery. Persuaded into a loveless marriage with Considine, twenty years her senior, Gabrielle moves to Devon where her husband establishes a boys' school. Here she takes an interest in one of his pupils, a boy with no sense of right or wrong. The possibility of scandal is averted by a determined midnight battle of wills between Gabrielle and the boy's mother... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.