A young surgeon’s clinical interest in nervous disease becomes entwined with personal mystery when he treats an injured, enigmatic elderly man and uncovers a locket and papers. The story moves through diary extracts and episodic scenes that reveal romantic entanglements, family tensions, and a disputed medical or moral theory advanced by the protagonist. Key moments—a startling proposal, dreams, moral confrontations, and a search for provenance—expose conflicting temperaments and beliefs, while characters grapple with attachment, disappointment, and the slow unravelling of hidden motives and secrets.