Suspicious Raphael Vojnar, a Moravian village judge, makes his young wife Barbara witness the public humiliation of an unfaithful wife who is bound with ropes to a wooden half-cross. He tells Barbara that if he ever catches her with another man he will kill her. This is a certain indicator that the plot is about to thicken and the pot is about to boil. The next day, Barbara meets her old beau, Quirin, who is in town to help his old uncle Sima with the harvest. Vojnar recognizes Quirin as a man he had arrested years earlier. Vojnar, stirring the pot, makes an overnight trip out of town, and Quirin boldly breaks into Barbara's bedroom, where, to the surprise of none, he is warmly received. The surprise comes the next day when old uncle Sima is found stabbed to death. Quirin can not account for his whereabouts without compromising Barbara and,even worse, he has lost his pearl-handled knife and can't prove it wasn't the murder weapon. The judge himself finds the knife in his garden and quickly puts two and two together, but Barbara has bribed the dim-witted maid, Anushka, to say it was she that Quirin was visiting.