Set during the American Civil War,the story tells of Miriam and David Raphael who are taken by their new found father from their impoverished childhood in a European ghetto to be brought up in the sumptuous elegance of New Orleans Miriam marries the handsome Eugene Mendes of Beau Jardin plantation but she does not find the happiness she craves-until she meets Andre Perrin, her cousin's unwilling husband, a man who makes no secret of his physical attraction to her