Ruth Kirke, Deanna Durbin, is a young idealistic schoolteacher who is escorting eight war orphans from South China to Calcutta when their steamship Tollare is torpedoed and sinks in the Pacific. She and a sailor named Timothy Blake, Barry Fitzgerald, survive the attack and are picked up by the steamship Westonia, brought to San Francisco, and told by immigration officials that the orphans will be held until a $500 bond for each child is posted. With no money of their own, Ruth and Timothy seek help from Commodore Thomas Spencer Holliday, Harry Davenport, the wealthy owner of the sunken cargo ship, who perished in the attack. When the family refuses to assist, Timothy proposes a dangerous ruse: Ruth and the commodore’s “widow” status would secure the orphans’ future, so he suggests Ruth and the commodore were married aboard the Tollare before it was struck. Ruth reluctantly agrees to the deception to protect the children’s prospects.
Ruth, Timothy, and the eight orphans move into the Holliday mansion, where they soon encounter the commodore’s grandson, Thomas Spencer Holliday III. The skeptical Tom questions Ruth about how she became his grandmother’s ward, and Ruth explains that her Christian mission was shattered in a Japanese bombing raid, leaving her to travel south with eight European children under her care. Along the way, they encounter a dying Chinese woman, and Ruth promises to care for her child as well. Moved by her story and her singing voice, Tom is drawn to Ruth, their bond growing as he witnesses the tenderness with which she treats the children.
As Ruth learns that she, as the commodore’s “widow,” would stand to inherit his vast shipping fortune, pressure from the family and the press intensifies. Desperate to safeguard the orphans’ future, Ruth and Timothy hatch a plan to escape the mansion and its scrutiny, a move that Tom discovers. To end the deception, Ruth confesses to Tom that she smuggled the orphans aboard the Tollare, believing the voyage would lead to Calcutta. During the voyage, the commodore had promised to assist Ruth in getting the children into the United States, even if that meant adopting them. After their ship is torpedoed, Ruth and Timothy return the children to safety by placing them in a lifeboat; they lose one boy, Pepe, but are rescued by another steamship.
Tom’s anger at the deception grows, and he insists that Ruth stay and keep up the ruse until the publicity around the “marriage” dies down, after which he would care for the orphans at the mansion once Ruth leaves. In the days that follow, Ruth finds herself falling in love with Tom, even as they navigate the complex tangle of loyalties and obligations surrounding the children. When the children’s immigration papers finally arrive, Ruth prepares to depart for Philadelphia, while Tom arrives at Timothy’s urging, unaware that she is about to leave. Timothy, aiming to provoke jealousy, tells Tom that the woman accompanying Ruth is her fiancé, prompting Tom to congratulate the stranger and inadvertently push Ruth back toward the mansion.
At a China relief ball hosted at the Holliday mansion, Ruth sings an aria, Vissi d’arte, before a ballroom full of guests as Tom watches with growing affection. The two confess their love, and the moment seems poised to resolve the moral maze surrounding Ruth’s status. The commodore, who has survived with Pepe, steps forward and pretends to be pleased with Ruth’s apparent happiness, even as he gauges the true feelings of the couple. He then reveals a startling truth: Ruth and he were never truly married, but that in three days she is poised to become Mrs. Holliday—the wife of his grandson, Tom Holliday. The revelation shifts the balance of power and affection and sets the stage for a final, emotional decision about where Ruth’s loyalties—and the orphans’ futures—truly lie.
