Saint Ann's convent Ventura, California

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Disturbed by many recent events at this beginning of 1986, former sister Mary DuVall returns for a few days to the convent in which she officiated for a long time. She finds there Mother Isabel, for a long time her confidante and friend. Situated in Ventura of where Mary is native, Saint Ann's convent is a haven of peace which calls up to meditation and to introspection. It is moreover for this that also comes here Sophia Armonti, who wonders as for her about the choice she has to make after having learnt that she suffers from a breast cancer. Mary simply warned her husband, Dr. Mark McCormick, of her departure, not to be disturbed. She does not know what to do any more, between a husband suffering from impotence whom she does not love, and a restless lover but with whom she feels she is in love. Mason Capwell, because it is him, follow Mary's track to Saint Ann's convent and spies on her in secret during her stay, disguised as a priest.

Of Saint Ann's convent, we see essentially the park, green and quiet, and the chapel where take place the majority of the scenes. Darker, the place calls up to spiritual and religious meditation. Sophia comes to pray there, being afraid for her health and her life, whereas Mary shares there her doubts as for her love life.

Only Mary uses the confessional to share with a priest her confusion. But she ignores that, inadvertently, it is Mason who is on the other side of the curtain and who hears her doubts. He learns in particular that her marriage was not consumed because of Mark's impotence, and that she thinks of asking for her marriage annulment.

Mary notices Mason's presence at the convent when she discovers that new subjects appear gradually on the mural painting situated on the wall of the bottom of the chapel. She sees there a woman who looks like her, giving the hand to a man whose appearance calls back with a doubt Mason. Finally, it is this same woman in the arms of the copy of Mark that Mason paints, when he thinks that Mary decided to return with her husband, representing himself simply as a shadows in a corner of the fresco, walking towards the horizon in the opposite direction of the couple.

The return to Saint Ann's convent ends when Mary admits her feelings to Mason and when this latter organizes then a breakaway on horseback, before a romantic night he organized on the neighboring mountains. Mary returns a last time to the convent the next day, to announce to Mother Isabel that she is decided to put an end to her marriage. Her return to Santa Barbara will not however be made easily, Mark not being decided to let leave the woman he married. In front of events which await her, no doubt that Mary would have rather stayed in a maybe definitive way in this place of peace and serenity.

Mason will return a last time to Saint Ann's convent at the end of 1986, to accompany Victoria Lane, also in search of a place of rest and thoughts. He will find there, at the foot of the fresco which he painted in the chapel, a commemorative plaque in memory of Mary.