Upon the death of his wife, George Blake, an attorney, leaves the east. He first places his pretty young daughter, Lucy, in a convent. After traveling for a few years from place to place, in an endeavor to find some location which he might be happy in, he settles in Lariat Hollow, a mining town. He soon falls in love with a woman of the dance hall named Anne. This incites the jealousy of Larkin, the political boss of the town. To break George Blake, Larkin nominates him for mayor, purposing to have him defeated. Anne suspects the plot and tries to influence Blake to refuse the nomination. But Blake has given his word to enter the contest and goes in to win. Blake's daughter writes to her father that she wishes to remain in the convent and become a nun. The father gives his consent. Now with every eastern tie severed, he asks Anne to marry him. She accepts, but says they will wait until after the election, fearing to ruin what political chances he might have by an alliance with a dance-hall woman. The election occurs and Larkin's confederates defeat Blake. On the night of the election, Lucy arrives unexpectedly from the convent, having decided that she has not the religious vocation after all. Blake, in his hour of trouble, is glad to have her with him. Anne wanders out alone through the autumn forest, living through her "Gethsemane." She returns to the cabin in which Blake lives and says to him, "Lucy, your daughter, has the first claim on you. You must take her back east, away from me to the surroundings in which she belongs." Anne takes the girl in her arms and kisses her, then she turns to Blake, and bidding him a last farewell, goes out into the forest alone.