A young woman’s return to continental life triggers the slow uncovering of long-buried secrets and strained family ties. The narrative moves through domestic rooms, a shipbroker’s office, and country houses as friendships, rivalries, and suspicions deepen. Legal disputes over wills and inheritances, investigations of identity, and episodes of illness and exile complicate relationships and reputations. Gradual recognitions and revelations resolve tangled loyalties, and a final settling of estates and moral reckonings brings the principal mysteries to conclusion.