Famous organist Arnold Graham returns to the US from a lengthy tour of Europe to find that his girlfriend Madelaine has been forced by her family to marry Count Zara, a rich but brutal nobleman who beats her and carries on an affair with his cousin, Pauline Zara. He convinces Pauline to take Madeleine's young daughter to England and then report her death of diphtheria. Arnold decides to take his revenge on the count, but matters don't turn out quite the way he wanted them to.