At the orphanage in Maiden Lane, Silence Hollingbrook adopted little Mary Darling. When the dreaded smuggler Mickey O"Connor kidnaps the child, who happens to be his bastard, Silence, mad anguish, rushed into his sumptuous residence on the banks of the Thames. But O"Connor refused to return the girl, he says threatened by its enemies. Silence has to come and live with her if she wants to see Mary, he decreed. The young widow has no choice but to accept, even though she knows that his reputation will be forever tarnished. It has does not realize that O"Connor has just handed him a Machiavellian trap ...