Germany, 1912. A young man takes up a clerical post in a steel factory and becomes the secretary to the elderly owner who is ill and confined to home. There the young man meets the owner's much young wife and falls in love with her, but keeps his feeling secret. But when he is sent to oversee the owner's mines in Mexico, the wife's reaction reveals that she is returns his feelings. She promises that when he returns in two years they can be together. But on the eve of his return to Germany, WWI erupts and maritime travel to Europe is suspended. Eight years later, the man returns home to the woman he hopes has been waiting for him. Has their love survived the brutal passage of time?