Katie Mulholland — Catherine Cookson

KATIE MULHOLLAND -- She was young, innocent -- and doomed by her very loveliness to cruel devastation by her master's brutality.

BERNARD ROSIER -- The notorious heir to the Rosier Mines, slave of his passions and obsessed by Katie.

THERESA ROSIER -- Bernard's strange sister, who hated her family and loved Katie with a man's heart.

CAPTAIN FRAENKEL -- The Swedish ship's captain who was the only man who could change Katie's destiny.