In a small Romanian village, peasant girl Katinka Veche falls in love with Jan Drakachu, a bright young man who spends his days studying. Jan wins a scholarship to an American university, graduates, and becomes a successful engineer, while Katinka, left behind in the village, is sold into slavery by her cruel, dissolute father. Her owner, Victor Dravich, takes her to his gambling house in Syria, where he beats her and forces her to become his mistress. When the house is raided, Dravich takes her with him on his travels around the world until they finally settle in a small Arizona mining camp. Katinka sees Jan there but is too ashamed to speak to him. Broken, she sends for her old tutor Boris, who comes to Arizona and kills Dravich but is shot by the sheriff. Katinka follows Jan to New York, where she is arrested, but he locates her in a girls' reclamation home and marries her.