Augustus Gale was a man in love - in love with a woman of genius who had been dead for over a century. This macabre devotion poisoned both his own life and the lives of those around him: his son and daughter, his beautiful second wife, and even his devoted mother. Yet it was a strictly confined obsession, and when a party of archaeologists sought permission to excavate a Roman mosaic pavement on Augustus's land, they were met with blunt and contemptuous refusal. It might be said that Augustus Gale was a man who deserved to die, but if so, whose was the hand that killed him and with what motive?