 When Michael McCann is thrown over by the woman he loves, he becomes something of a misanthropist and a miser, spending all of his spare money on collectible gold coins. Living in the same town is an affluent family with two sons: John and Tanny. Tanny s a wild boy, whom John cannot control, and one night he breaks into McCann s house, and steals the gold and disappears, which nearly confirms McCann s distrust of mankind. But then, a mysterious young woman dies in the snow outside McCann s house, and her small daughter makes her way to McCann s house and into McCann s life and heart. He names her Mathilda, and raises her, finding companionship and a new joy in life with his adopted daughter. But the secret of Mathilda s birth may tear them apart.