During the Christmas season of 1868, business tycoon Andrew Carnegie sits in his suite at the St. Nicholas Hotel in New York, reflecting on his past. We learn that he formed an emotional attachment to a young woman named Clara Kelley, who was formerly his mother’s lady’s maid. Clara disappeared nearly a year ago. Although Carnegie made every effort to track her down, no trace has been found. Andrew writes out a new plan for his life. He intends to spend the next two years increasing his wealth and then devote the remainder of his life and fortune to charitable causes. He believes that such a course of action would please Clara.

The story shifts back to November 1863 from the perspective of a 19-year-old Irish immigrant named Clara Kelley. Her family has pooled their meager resources to send her to America. Her intelligence and independent spirit make her a better candidate for the voyage than her sisters, Cecilia and Eliza. Clara is traveling on a transatlantic steamer where steerage passengers are herded like cattle and accorded very few resources and no respect. When the ship arrives in Philadelphia Harbor, the immigrants are sent to a quarantine station called the Lazaretto.