Kassandra von Gotthard, wife of a Berlin banker, has an affair with Dolff Sterne, the doomed German-Jewish novelist Ariana von Gotthard's life of security becomes one of fear and degradation as a prisoner of the Nazis and, taking only her mother's diamond signet ring, she flees to America Years later her son discovers the secret of his birth and the ring, worn by the woman he loves, brings Ariana a reunion with someone from her distant past