Time frame - circa the turn of the century (1900). Set in the English county of Dorset, our story begins with the funeral of the mill owner. His younger son, Raymond, must now learn the business from the older. He meets Sabina, the beautiful 19-year-old chief spinner, promises to marry her, takes her to bed, and then abandons her. The story is told in two sections - the first about Sabina's history, the second (which opens some ten years later) about Sabina's bastard son, in whose spirit is concentrated all the despair and bitterness his mother felt before his birth. As he grows, can he be turned by the love of another woman from the mill and reconcile with his father?