Peter Trahier thought it was a small matter to walk out of his office without permission in order to talk with a man who might be able to further his political career... What possible harm could his action have had?

Phyllis Bentley, while painting a vivid picture of the industrial West Riding of Yorkshire, gives us a chain of events that immediately follows; a sequence of cause and effect ripples through the whole community, its impetus continually increasing, till it surges with tragic force against the young man's own doorstep. First published in 1958, this is Dr Bentley's finest piece of story-telling.