When Cathleen Harrington leaves her home in Ireland in 1919 to travel to South Africa, she knows that she does not love the man she is to marry there. Her only real companions are her diary and her housemaid, and later the housemaid's daughter, Ada. When Ada disappears one day, scorned by her own community, Cathleen must make a choice: Should she conform to society, or search for the girl who has become closer to her than her own daughter?