Set during the final years of
British colonial rule in India, the film depicts the growing tensions within a small convent of
Anglican nuns who have been invited to establish a school and hospital in the old harem of an Indian Raja at the top of an isolated mountain in the
Himalayas. The nuns have trouble adapting to the harsh climate and antagonistic population. They come to rely on the help and advice of the Raja's
British agent, a cynical Englishman whose attractiveness and
panache become a source of temptation for the sisters.