A young woman named Madeleine, from a respectable family embarks on an affair with a penniless French man. Their affair carries on in secret while Madeleine's Father parades various suitors in front of her. The Frenchman wants to marry her so she suggests an elopement. But he wishes to gain her father's consent. This is not part of her plans, but he blackmails her with threats of revealing their affair. A few weeks later, he dies of arsenic poisoning. Madeleine is the prime suspect....