Pegeen O'Neill must fend for herself when her father Dan becomes mentally unbalanced after the death of his wife Mary. Dan spends his days searching for his wife, setting fires in the belief that the flames will illuminate his Mary. The townspeople, enraged at the arson which is slowly destroying their village, track Dan down, entrapping him in a burning cabin. Pegeen rushes to comfort her dying father, who consoles himself at death with the hallucination that his wife has returned in the figure of his daughter. Pegeen then is rescued from the raging fire by Jimmie, who proposes to the waif as he delivers her from the flames.