After a lifetime apart, a widow and a widower wonder if their hearts still harbor...the tender flame Grant Smith and Lydia Reynolds fell in love at a young age and their "tender flame" continued to burn. When President Polk suddenly announced that war with Mexico was inevitable and Grant, who had just graduated from West Point, is sent to Mexico, his plans to marry Lydia are put on hold. Lydia is grief stricken when she learns that Grant was wounded in battle and believed dead. After two years, Grant escapes from a Mexican prison and returns home to find that Lydia has remarried and is now living in the Northwest. Many years pass until they meet again, both now widowed, and realize that the "tender flame" has never gone out. Grant and Lydia come to realize that "As for God, His way is perfect."