As Matt woos Sally Talley and strives to break through her protective shell, pieces of his past are revealed. He and his family were victims of European anti-Semitism, and Matt cannot forget that fellow humans destroyed his family. His horror finds expression in a decaying Victorian boathouse on a quiet river, as he and Sally slowly draw together on a July evening. Sally too, has known suffering. Now a spinster of thirty-one, she escapes the restraint of small-town values not her own by retreating to the ornate boathouse, which is known to the townspeople as 'Talley's Folly'...