Captain Tom Woods, an escapee from Blacksburg, is on leave from serving under Colonel George Washington at Loyal Hannon. As he passes through Quaker country, a desperate little boy bursts out of a cornfield beseeching him for help. Following the child into the woods, he finds a Quaker woman who has clearly been foully used. With his caretaker heart, he cannot abandon her. Elizabeth Walker, having followed God all her life, naively believed nothing could ever hurt her. She discovered her error first in her failure as a wife. Now she has been viciously beaten and violated. Her world has crashed around her, but because of her son, she must fight through the desolation her life has become.