The picture opens with a series of diaphragm effects, retaining the court room atmosphere. The judge is seen seated. Garwood, the prisoner is laboring under a terrible strain as he looks up at the judge. A look of pity comes over his face as he looks at his mother. Then we see his sister. Her brother meets her gaze. Then the foreman of the jury. He finishes speaking. The prisoner registers that his doom is sealed. He sets his jaw and looks at his mother. Then the mother and his sister look toward him and he at them. The judge speaks: "Rene Haggard, you have been found guilty of murder in the first degree and it is the order of this court that on the morning of March 27 you shall be hanged and may God have mercy on your soul." The prisoner's jaw sets. The scene shows the heart-broken mother and the distraught sister. The mother turns to her son, and looking at him with tearful eyes, asks, "My boy, why did you do this?" The boy turns to her and looks into her eyes. As he does so the scene fades away to tell the story. The fade shows the sister leaving her little country home to make her way in the city. She is bidding good-bye to her mother and her farmer brother. Then is shown her hopeless fight in the city, her marriage to a good-for-nothing drunkard, his supposed death; then of her meeting with her present husband under different circumstances; of their marriage and then their baby, the crowning joy of her life; then home, a picture of blissful content. The boy leaves home to visit his sister. She tells him her story. Then her first husband, rescued from apparent death, discovers her and endeavors to blackmail her. He is still her legal husband. She gives him all she can, and driven to desperation, pleads with him to spare her but he refuses. In despair she goes to her brother. He tells her to meet the man at night in a certain place and that he will be there. She agrees and the appointment is made. The night of the murder arrives. The brother meets his sister, and the sister leaves. The brother, masked, waits. The man comes up. The brother shoots and kills him, just as an officer turns the corner. The boy is arrested. The sister pleads with him to keep her past a secret. He agrees to do so. Friday, the 27th. A hill looking toward the prison can be seen. Over the prison the black flag, the sign of an execution, rises slowly. The mother sees the flag as it fills out. Then is shown the tear-stained face of the resigned mother as she gives one final look at the flag and turning, starts off down the hill, to disappear up the road.