A man gets drunk and commits a senseless murder. He is condemned to death by guillotine. But in the 1850s on a small French fishing island off the coast of Newfoundland, there is no guillotine, and no executioner. The guillotine can be shipped from the French island colony of Guadeloupe. But the island will have to find its own executioner, because superstitious ships' captains refuse to allow one on board.
Time passes, and a strange and touching thing happens.
The murderer repents and becomes a useful member of the community. He saves a woman's life. He works in a garden started by the wife of the captain of the local military. He understands her slightest emotional clues. Stirred and . . .