Cirrus@Austlit

'Antonia James - 'Tony' to you - admitted that she had no right whatever to jump on Gerald Gates' favourite mare just because the animal happened to be waiting, saddled and bridled, on the other side of the hedge. All the same, it was rather a severe punishment to be tossed off immediately, and to be found lying with all the breath knocked out of her body by the owner. Gates was none too pleased, but, cynical bachelor though he was, he could do no less than help the girl inside. He relented a little when he heard Tony's story.

'After the death of her parents, the city had been none to kind to her, and she had come to the country in search of the big chance of which she had always dreamed. So far, it had not come her way. She had just been dismissed from a post as maid because the son of the house wanted to make love to her, and she was walking to Merrigan to look for another job. Gates offered her a position as assistant to his house keeper. A comparative new-comer to the district, he had bought the property after a notorious fraudulent bankruptcy case in which he had been involved with his father. The elder man died while the case was in progress, and nothing had been definitely proved against Gerald, but the affair had shaken and embittered him. Nor did it sweeten his disposition to be rejected for service with Air Force or Army on account of an injury to an eye. In the worst of moods, therefore, he hid himself in the country, knowing that in the eyes of local society his character had been blackened beyond recall.

'His neighbour, old Ashley, who was wealthy enough not to care what anyone thought, offered him friendship, but regretted the gesture when he found that, with characteristic perversity, his granddaughter Rosalind was strongly attracted by the young man, although, to do Gates justice, there was nothing about his demeanour to encourage her...' (Publisher's abstract)