Lady Delia Loring’s husband, Sir Edward, is cross with her. He sends her away to the country, to Harrogate, to take care of her invalid mother, with the expectation that she lives in quiet respectability and has no contact with her daughter. While in Harrogate, she is reunited with a lover from her first blush of youth, Lord Stephen FitzCharles. He asks if they can meet again but she rejects the notion.