Sent to the workhouse as a child, all Ella Hathaway can remember is a voice whispering, 'Dearie, promise you will never forget what you saw. Your Ma was killed deliberate ... and someone oughter pay for it.' When young, wealthy spinster Letitia Fairchild witnesses Ella being ill-treated, she takes her in as a scullery maid. But as Ella grows up, she is determined to find the truth about her mother's tragic death and appeals to Letitia for help, revealing her only personal possession, a black silk purse. Intrigued, Letitia agrees to begin a quest to solve the mystery of Ella's past. But there are astonishing and dramatic consequences.