“Always love life” was the message Briony Stone’s first sweetheart left with her before he was killed in an air crash. It seems strange that the same thought should be voiced by Robert Baker, the young vet whom she has known such a short time, but to whom she is so unaccountably drawn. Briony, now married to the snobbish, unimaginative Charles, realises too late that she has disregarded her lover’s advice, running away from life into marriage with a man she likes and respects but doesn’t love.