He escapes and is befriended by a Royal Navy captain, Hervey Barrington, who helps reunite him with the young Englishwoman he loves, and with his repatriation to France.

Due to the machinations of Juliana's jealous fiancé, Raoul is considered to have broken his parole and is sent to the prison camp at Norman's Cross.

Hervey's stalled career as a naval officer is meanwhile rescued by his official report of Raoul's drowning having attracted the attention of the Admiralty - he had simply been forgotten.

As with D. K. Broster's most successful novel The Flight of the Heron (1925), and The Wounded Name, published 1922, the focus of the novel, despite the female love interest, is the close friendship which develops between two very different men.

"...a wholly charming romance... A French prisoner of war in England seems to present material for pity, for fun, for excitement.