Shortly after WW1, James is mugged and left for dead on the steps of a Methodist Chapel in Ipswich. Taken in by the minister and his daughter he is found to have lost his memory. He falls in love with the minister's daughter, but when his memory comes back, he realises he already has a fiancée living in Newmarket.

The story finishes in the old Heffers bookshop in Petty Cury (now replaced by the Cambridge Lion Yard shopping centre).