Refiner's Fire

Lizzie Hamilton, the pampered daughter of a prominent nineteenth-century South Carolina cotton planter, has lost everythingher home, her social status, her financial security. Spurned by the Charleston society she once dominated and dependent on the largesse of her extended family, she is an easy mark for handsome professional gambler Jack O'Rourke, who convinces her to run away with him to New Orleans, the possibility of marriage held out as an enticement.

She soon realizes she has been duped. Not only will there by no marriage, but Jack will support her only if she agrees to act as his gambling accomplice. She has no choice but to make the best of a bad situation until Jack's shady past catches up with him and they are forced to move their operation to a Mississippi riverboat. Held in virtual servitude, Lizzie decides to escape and make her way to the gold fields of California.

Determined to be independent of any man, she manages to attach herself to a...