The protagonist of the novel, Eliza Sommers, has dual English and Chilean Indian heritage. Her origins were cloaked in mystery because she is the illegitimate daughter of Captain John Sommers and a Chilean woman whose name he has forgotten. Eliza arrives as a baby in a crate on the doorstep of the Sommers home in the English colony in Valparaíso, Chile. Eliza is raised by an English maternal figure, Miss Rose Sommers, who dresses her in elegant clothes and arranges for piano lessons. Eliza also has an Indian maternal figure, Mama Fresia, the Sommerses’ servant, who teaches her cooking skills, Indian legends, and nature’s ways. The blend of these distinct cultural influences serves Eliza well when she must later cope on her own.

Eliza demonstrates her determination when she rejects Miss Rose’s choice of a husband for her and falls in love with the impoverished and charismatic Joaquín Andieta. Eliza willingly sacrifices her virtue in the name of love to rendezvous with him. Eliza idealizes Joaquín as the perfect lover, but Joaquín seems to be distracted by his political ideas of organizing workers against employers’ abuses. After Joaquín departs for California, Eliza discovers that she is pregnant.