The ending is the most criticized feature, since Bernick is clearly guilty of attempted murder but gets off unscathed, but successfully illustrates that the rich and powerful are often selfish and corrupt.

[3] Karsten Bernick is the dominant businessman in a small coastal town in Norway, with interests in shipping and shipbuilding in a long-established family firm.

Now he is planning his most ambitious project yet, backing a railway which will connect the town to the main line and open a fertile valley which he has been secretly buying up.

In the years since Tønnesen left, the town has built ever greater rumours of his wickedness, helped by Bernick's studious refusal to give any indication of the truth.

This mixture only needs a spark to explode and it gets one when Tønnesen falls in love with Dina Dorf, a young girl who is the daughter of the actress involved in the scandal of 15 years ago and who now lives as a charity case in the Bernick household.

He orders his yard foreman to finish the work by the next day, even if it means sending the ship and its crew to certain death because he wants Tønnesen to die on board.