When Lucy's mother Amy is flung out of the house by her seafaring husband in a drunk rage, she is rescued by a gentleman naval officer. Only on her deathbed does Amy reveal Lucy's true lineage. Determined to hold the family together, Lucy marries unwisely and is forced to seek work at shipyard owner Buchanan's house where she used to help her mother as a child and where she first met his kind nephew and malicious son. And Lucy finds in the face of such adversity, love will not run an easy course....