After having spent years in a German POW camp Pierre Neuville returns home by the end of the war. Here, he learns that his wife was killed in a German air-raid five years ago. Since then his son has been missing. Piere places all his hopes on finding his again.
His investigation leads him to an orphanage, where he gets to know André. The boy came to the orphanage at the same time Pierre`s son disappeared. All circumstances seem to indicate that André is in fact Pierre`s son. Pierre regularly visits the boy, he take him home on the weekend and after a while he is fully convinced that André is his son.
In these days Pierre meets Rose, a friend from childhood days, and the two fall in love. Rose, too, develops strong feeling for André. As they still can not prove that the orphan is Pierre`s son, they decide to apodt the boy.
Before the adoption is legally accepted, Pierre learns who his natural son is and that he lives in the neighbourhood. Now he arranges everything to take Jeannot, that is the currrent name of the boy, to him. But he has to accept that in the meantime the boy has found his luck in another family. When André learns that his dream of a family and of escaping the orphanage is shattered, he packs his few belongings, says good-bye to his friend Lucien and leaves at night.