内容简介：
Katherine, alone and impoverished, secures a teaching position in an orphanage. The headmaster immediately starts making lurid, suggestive advances. Her position is reduced to scullery maid. She befriends Sarah, a crippled, uneducated girl whom she teaches to read and write. A doctor arranges a beneficial marriage for Katherine to a wealthy Earl, many years her senior. He has three children older than Katherine and a daughter younger. It is to be a marriage in name only. She is to be a companion to his young daughter and grace his home. To Katherineas horror the Earl consummates the marriage and she becomes pregnant. The eldest son, Sebastian, will not admit that he is in love with Katherine and he leaves. After the Earlas death, Katherine and her baby are rejected by his children and forced to leave. Sebastian returns home, using bribery and coercion to find Katherine.