April 1927. A passenger train wrecks as it nears a mideastern U.S. farm town. Young Dr. Jim Martin, treating the injured, meets Annette, a French girl trained as a midwife, recently orphaned, and sent there to live with her uncle. When the uncle dominates and abuses her, Jim intervenes but is blocked in his efforts. Meanwhile, conflict with the county medical society drives him to practice in isolation, fully a 'country' doctor. Jim's failing but inescapable marriage stands in the way of freeing Annette from bondage. He contrives to send her to nursing school, where her studies are interrupted just short of graduation. Then his concern and love for her lead to fateful moves and a killing. Scandal and social conditions threaten the relationship. And Annette, now older and more independent, forces a crisis. Spanning a crucial American decade, Jim's work brings to life a physician's practice in that era. One case in particular is vital to a defiant, impassioned love affair resolved in a distant land.