Emmy and Rose are bound to each other irrevocably by ties of their friendship and love, yet destined to a ceaseless struggle for the same man, Adam Their story of Australia in the upheaval of the goldrushes of the 1850s and later, when the hordes of immigrants turned away from the gold-fields to make new lives for themselves in the growing society of 'Victorian' Australia In her final triumph, Emmy faces her greatest challenge to learn a new kind of loving