Maggie, an Appalachian farm girl of Irish descent, living in Wilkes County, NC, develops an unremitting love for fellow mail carrier, Shade King, whose view of marriage is a rope around his neck. When Maggie's mother dies of pneumonia and her father absconds with another woman, Maggie is left with a farm to run and two siblings to raise. Shade promises his right arm but delivers little. After baby Necy is born and her siblings leave the homestead, Maggie trades her farm for a cabin near the city and begins life anew. When Shade unwittingly entangles himself with the Sheriff's wife Claire, he cowardly brings Maggie into his convoluted dilemma, leaving her with no way out when she is arrested for murder in the death of the Sheriff's daughter, Lou Ann Stratton.