The financial stringency that hit Nigeria took its heaviest toll on the educational structure of Oji State. This was aggravated by financial impropriety involving many civil servants. An embargo was placed on the employment of newly trained teachers, while those teaching were owed several months' salaries. Vero, one of the newly employed teachers, was forced by financial difficulty, against her parents' advice, into a scandalous relationship with Mr. Ejeme, an education secretary. Their affair resulted in pregnancy, which caused Vero to lose two serious suitors. Having lost the mother's love, the world was too much for her when she received the news of her father's stroke, and worried that she would have an illegitimate son to raise all by herself, she decided to take her own life. As she sobbed to death, she called on Hilda, an old friend and colleague whose love she had lost in the mess to take care of her mother.