When his first sexual encounter is with his Mormon missionary companion - a man - Heber Averil is first elated and then dismayed. His near-drowning the next day in the Loire river convinces him that here, on his mission to pre-World War II France where he has promised to serve the Lord, his very soul is in peril. He vows to never again touch a man, yet a year later he finds himself in the arms of an alluring Frenchman. As the years pass the struggle to reconcile the church's teachings, love for his family, and his true nature haunts every aspect of his life.