Persistent faith brings redemption and reconciliation. Propelled by blind love, Mary Rachel Buckmeyer defies her father to elope with Caleb Wheeler. The newlyweds run off to California then partner with his cousin in his dry goods business. Unbeknownst to the young bride, her new husband sends his kissing cousin ahead. He wants his love and his new wife's money, too. Betrayal and murder drive Mary, soon a young mother, to the depths of despair. But she hates the man who loves her enough to cover her sins and deliver her out of the horrible pit she's dug for herself. Or does she? Mary Rachel travels from frontier Texas to the raw bone boomtown of 1850's San Francisco gold rush days, then all the way to genteel New York to find redemption for the sins of her mothers.