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A wealthy merchant adopts a young boy and takes him into his family as his own son. When the boy becomes an adult, he receives his father's company and control of the business venture. The young man soon marries and later takes a mistress. When the ingrate makes a pass at his young stepmother, an act that ultimately causes the tragic death of the woman, his adopted father shoots him. The father is jailed for the murder and is later killed by a prison guard. This film is taken from an 18th-century story by German poet and author Heinrich von Kleist and updated to the 20th century.