Dora, the daughter of a wealthy man, marries a good looking young fellow from the country who has made an auspicious start in New York business life. Having won the girl by trickery, he proceeds to reveal a baseness of disposition which makes the life of his young wife a terrible burden. He becomes a drunkard and ill-treats his wife and baby child. Dora resents his cruelty and he robs her of the child, surreptitiously conveying it to his mother and then, himself, going away to sea on a fishing schooner. Dora, bereft of husband and child, becomes a prey to grief. She is in all essentials a widow, for the news comes that her vicious young husband was drowned at sea. Fresh sufferings await the girl. Concealing her identity she makes her way to the fishing village where her husband was born; becomes the paying guest of his mother; recognizes her own child, and excites the love of her husband's brother, now a clergyman. Dora's troubles are about to recommence with undiminished severity.