For a Fallen Woman and Agent of Inquiry, a young matron of quality is not the usual client. But when such a woman asks Miss Sarah Tolerance to find her sister, Miss Tolerance can't bring herself to say no. The girl has vanished from under her family's roof, apparently bent on elopement with a mysterious stranger. Like, and unlike, Miss Tolerance's own scandalous elopement years ago. Haunted by the similarities between this girl's story and her own, Miss Tolerance is determined to reunite the girl with her grieving sister. But there is little to go on, only an assumed name and a small portrait. And-despite her client's urgency/anxiety--Miss Tolerance soon discovers there are people who would do anything to see the girl never returns home.

As she digs further the mystery surrounding the young woman-so like and yet unlike herself-forces Miss Tolerance to confront her own past, and to question what her future may hold...