Loren Fairchild longs for children, but is barren. At a cottage in Carlisle, UK, she puts her divorce behind her and begins a new life. She learns that in 1947 the former owner’s wife disappeared. The same week, according to local gossip, her husband took up with a dark-headed harlot. One morning, a simple minded woman appears and triggers events that change Loren’s life forever.

Miles Chapeau misses the wife, the mother of his two children, he’d known before the war. When he returned from WWII in 1945 she’d been hurt in an air raid and now has the mind of a child. He loves her and would never forsake his duty, but misses the intimate side of marriage and a woman to share his life. One day she disappears and his existence is turned upside down.