A widower with three young children finds himself in debt. Blinded, in an industrial accident, he loses his job and is admitted to hospital. Upon returning home, he overhears the heartless landlord criticising him for not dying instead of "merely" blinding himself because, if he were dead, the children could be looked after in an orphanage. He decides not to enter the house and disappears. Left alone, the children are evicted. They lose contact with one another after one is left on a train and another is kidnapped. Years pass. The children grow up in different homes under different circumstances. But fate has decreed that the family shall not be forever parted.