Conseil Régional de Picardie

During the Crusades, Vercors betroths his beautiful daughter Violaine to Jacques. She cannot marry Jacques because she has contracted leprosy, so Jacques marries her younger sister Mara. Jacques and Mara's first child dies soon after its birth, and Mara begs Violaine to return from seclusion to restore the child to life.

Two women in a French village during World War 2 anxiously await a letter which may or may not be arriving for either of them.