Love Veiled by Destiny

Philip Maynard is a young Englishman who, following the post-war failure of his first marriage, has travelled to South Africa to take up a position as mathematics master in a government school. In Johannesburg he meets Marnie van Vollenhoven, a beautiful Capetonian, and falls deeply in love with her. Marnie, however, is evasive. Philip's relationship with her is one of unfulfilled longing and eventual despair.


For the sake of his career and in a test of Marnie's love, Philip returns to England where he takes up an appointment as headmaster of Wharfedale College, a private school in the Yorkshire Dales. Here he meets and marries Edith Armitage, knowing that all he can give her is a second-best relationship, because his love remains in Africa.


Edith proves to be a capable and popular headmaster's wife and the marriage companionship succeeds, with the couple settling into a very English way of life. But as time passes, Edith's poor health lead the pair to Africa, where Philip is once again to meet Marnie.


Eventually Philip is to discover the reason for Marnie's seemingly inexplicable behaviour towards him, as well as the significance of a surprise encounter with a young woman in a Boland village of the Cape.