It is based on the 1908 novella with the same title by Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Lagerlöf had for many years denied any proposal to let her novels be adapted for film, but after seeing Sjöström's Terje Vigen she finally decided to give her consent.

As described in a film magazine (with English names),[3] Helga, the girl from the Marsh Croft, appears in court against Peter Martenson, the father of her child, but withdraws her charge when he is about to perjure himself.

This wins the admiration of Gudmund Erlandson, who persuades his parents to take the disgraced young woman into their home as a servant.

Gudmund becomes engaged to Hildur, the daughter of a wealthy neighbor, but then is involved in a drunken orgy where a man is murdered.