Saga of an Australian country station. The owner, Honourable Follinger, died in the 1870s - his will left everything to his Oxford friend and manager George Dare. His wife, a mean widow, is enraged, her son disappointed and Follinger's ward Constance incensed. The widow is murdered and suspicion falls on a simple gardener she had had discharged - but he implicates the widow' son whom Constance had eloped with the night before; the son confesses and commits suicide, Constance enters the convent and Dare falls sick from disillusion, remaining unmarried. (PB)