Suddenly and disastrously, smallpox strikes the town of Kingsbourne in the south of England. For Dr. Steven Monks, this means the postponement of a well-deserved holiday with his wife.

As the sickness spreads and takes its toll, the doctor's own life shows increasing symptoms of another kind of trouble--one dating back to a night spent with Ruth, a colleague's wife. His is a moral sickness and before it is through it changes lives as drastically as the epidemic which scourges the town.

"A master at showing the fractures of men under stress." (Books and Bookmen)