At the high point of his career, Robert Rhodes quits his university post to live alone in a half-ruined cottage in the remoteness of the Italian Apennines.
Over the autumn and winter, amid the lonely beauty of his hills, he ignores messages that bring news of an inheritance and of critical acclaim for his history of western monasticism; ignores too the advances of an attractive former faculty colleague who tries to tempt him from his wilderness. Only to his daughter does he confess the true reason for his exile.
As winter turns to spring, he finds that he is not alone in his hills. There is Fra Benedetto, the brilliant young Carthusian struggling with his vows as he walks the ridgeway above the monastery. And there is Giorgio, son of a local contadino family, whose eyes betray some deep disappointment. Most threatening of all are the Americans who have rented the house over the hill for the season.
As the summer wears on, Robert finds himself being drawn slowly, reluctantly, into the lives and dilemmas of others who have sought to separate themselves from the world for reasons of their own.