Atonement is a tragic love story told mostly through the perspective of a person who was partially responsible for keeping the couple apart. Cecilia and Robbie's love may be doomed anyway, since Cecilia is the daughter of wealthy parents and Robbie and his family are laborers on the wealthy family's property. Once Cecilia and Robbie begin to recognize their feelings for one another, Robbie writes an illicit note to Cecilia. He does not intend to give it to her, but he accidentally gives it to her sister Briony to deliver to Cecilia in place of a more "appropriate" note that he actually means to send. Briony sees the letter and is upset by it, feeling she needs to protect her sister from Robbie, to whom she had previously been close.
Slightly later, Robbie and Cecilia explore their feelings for one another in the library of the home, but their happiness...
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does not last long. Later in the evening, many of the characters are out on the house grounds and Briony's cousin Lola is raped (by the man who eventually becomes her husband). Lola does not tell her cousin who her assailant was, but Briony accuses Robbie. He is then arrested and serves a prison sentence before going to fight in World War II. Cecilia, and later Briony, also serve as nurses during the war. In the final section of the novel, Cecilia and Robbie are living together and Briony visits them to apologize for the time her accusation kept them apart. However, the novel'sepilogue reveals that both Robbie and Cecilia were killed in the war and never saw each other again. There was no happy ending. Robbie's arrest resulted in the tragic end of their relationship, even though Briony later knows Robbie is not guilty.
The novel is so much about Briony trying to atone for her sins that the love story is only a secondary focus. At the same time, the relationship between Cecilia and Robbie stands as an example of lost potential and tragic, ill-fated love, and it is what infuses Briony with so much guilt about what she has done.