A young boy spends the summer at his school friend's grand country estate, where he is gradually drawn into acting as a secret messenger between his friend's older sister and a local farmer with whom she is conducting a forbidden romance. Too innocent to fully grasp the adult passions and class tensions he is helping to conceal, he finds that his unwitting role has devastating consequences for everyone involved. The story is framed by the boy's reflections as an old man, haunted by that summer's events.