AustLit

'At midnight, a girl fleeing from some unnamed terror along a Sydney coast road runs her car over the cliffs into the sea. The following day the papers report her suicide, although her body has not been found. Three weeks later, under the name of Anne Cushing, she leaves the train at Marston, a small town in outback Queensland, to take possession of a farm she has brought through an agent. Barry Duane, her nearest neighbour, who tells her that his ambition is to irrigate the dry and useless Warrigal Valley, although, years before, his uncle had failed in a similar attempt to make something of the Warrigal's next-door neighbour, the Nannup. As the weeks go by they drift into love, and finally Anne consents to become Barry's wife. They are quietly married, to the bitter disappointment of Barry's mother, who lives at Frankston, near Melbourne. Mrs. Duane had selected wealthy Cleo Pendleton as her daughter-in-law, and when Barry brings Anne south, receives Anne very coldly.

'On the night of their arrival, Anne is dressing for dinner when she catches a glimpse of a man sauntering past her window. White-faced and shaken, she shrinks fearfully back into the room. Will this man out of the forgotten past spoil Anne's new-found happiness?' (Publisher's abstract)