Life on the Fifteen Streets was a continual struggle for survival. John O'Brien grew up in abject poverty, confined to the hardships of the Fifteen Streets. Labouring on the city's docks and trying to keep his loved ones safe from the drunken wrath of his father and brother, this is the only way of life he knows. Then John O'Brien meets his sister's teacher. Mary Llewellyn is beautiful and elegant, wealthy and privileged. She wants to help the less fortunate through education, in the hope it will enable them to escape their desolate lives. From a casual conversation over tea grows a rare love, but fate steps in when John is accused of fathering the child of a local girl and Mary's parents forbid her to see John. The couple begin to think that gulf between them cannot be bridged...