The complex cross-currents of conflicting loyalties among the inhabitants of Palermo, Sicily, come across vividly in this romantic thriller. Wealthy young Ruggero is the American son of an Italian mother. He returns to Sicily for his mother's funeral and looks in on the reformatory for wayward girls that his mother gave money to. One of the girls, Lucia (Jo Champa) manages to catch his eye, and soon he is involved in sorting out his own and the girl's loyalties with regard to her mobster connections and his law-abiding affinities. Evenutally a short-term romance takes place between the two of them amid a welter of legal complications, but Lucia understands that they are from different worlds, and will not hear of marriage.