When Adam Rhoades tires of the political climate in Ireland and decides to leave for America, his daughter Rebekah's future happiness is threatened. For Rebekah, against her father's wishes, has fallen in love with handsome young Republican, Daniel O'Neill. Then Daniel, too, is forced to flee from his homeland and joins Rebekah on an ocean liner headed for New York. In the enclosed shipboard society their love is impossible to hide.

But a cruel twist of fate leaves Rebekah orphaned and living in Liverpool, without the man she loves. Reluctantly she agrees to marry her new guardian, Joshua Green. It is a decision Rebekah soon bitterly regrets. Isolated and vulnerable, it is only when she takes her courage in her hands does she rediscover the happiness she thought had been lost to her forever.