 After a bomb destroys a railway carriage, the four survivors repair to the villa of one, Mrs. Delahunty, a writer of romance novels, a woman with a past. The others are an aging British general, a young German man, and Aimee, an American girl orphaned in the blast. As these four strangers recover in Umbria s countryside and become friends, Aimee s uncle, a cold and childless academic who studies red carpenter ants, arrives to fetch her. Mrs. Delahunty fears this may not be in Aimee s best interests, begins to drink heavily, and fails in her attempts to connect with Aimee s uncle. Meanwhile, a persistent detective investigates the blast.