Unmarried ex-army vicar Reverend Howard Phillips, newly arrived in the parish, attempts to get local 19-year-old thug and petty criminal Larry Thompson to face up to his responsibilities to Mary Williams, the naive young girl he has made pregnant.

However, having earlier seen a young girl leaving the vicarage late one night (Mary, who had sought the vicar's advice about her pregnancy), Hester jumps to the conclusion the two are romantically linked and chooses to believe Larry's account.

Shortly afterwards, Mary chances across Larry kissing another girl, and in distress blindly stumbles across the road into the path of a car, and is killed.

As a consequence of the malicious accusation, Howard is subjected to suspicion and abuse by his parishioners, including having his car's tyres slashed and receiving poison pen letters.

If some of the background detail seems unconvincing (the juvenile delinquents are seen from the conventional middle-class viewpoint, and the vicars, retired or active, enjoy too luxurious a standard of living) the personal conflicts that occupy the foreground are authentic and well observed.