[1] Countess Ysabel (Asta Nielsen) is a superficial and coquettish aristocrat who plays with other people's feelings like they were puppets.
Inga (Lilly Jacobsson), Professor Maninis (Nicolai Neiiendam) daughter, loves her cousin Felix (Harry Komdrup), but he has only thoughts for Ysabel, which does not go down well with Baron Sandro Grec (Anton de Verdier) who is engaged to the Comtesse.
He saves the poor orphan girl Wenka (Astrid Holm) who wants to drown herself in the city's park lake, as she has nothing else in life but a drunken stepfather (Hans Dynesen) and a backyard cat.
Felix, like the girl, also wants to commit suicide, but for completely different reasons; he is frustrated and desperate in his hopeless love for the countess.
Countess Ysabel then sails back from the preacher's island, but now learns that her mother is dead and the grief and desperation drive her to faith and to start preaching herself.