It is in late eighteenth-century Cambridge, England where young Mike Harrington discovers Jacob Tolabert, is stealing from the family company. Mike's parents are killed in an apparent robbery, and Jacob Tolabert forces Mike to sell out to him at a severe loss. Beaten and robbed Mike flees the city in fear of his life. He meets three men who teach him how to survive. Together, they work their way around England. When Mike decides it is time to collect the debt he feels Tolabert owes him, things go horribly wrong. While in hiding in Edinburgh, Mike meets and falls in love with the daughter of a wealthy Englishman, and discovers her father has the influence that could keep him safe. Father John Osborn has been the one constant throughout his life. Mike discovers the secret that has kept the minister so close to him, and this secret will bring Mike to the ultimate showdown with Jacob Tolabert.