Italian couple Maria and Pietro Rosati live in Brazil, where they manage an estate.

They fall in love and marry, but when Brazil enters the Second World War all Italian citizens are expelled from the country, and they catch the last available ship for Italy.

To Maria's shock, they discover Pietro working as a stoker in the engine room; he miraculously survived his fall into the river and has been laying low to avoid arrest.

He demands that his wife return to him, but she says she is pregnant and loves her second husband, even if the marriage is technically invalid.

When the ship hits a mine, Pietro nobly sacrifices himself by helping Maria and the doctor into a lifeboat and then cutting the rope.