In Sussex, England after the World War I, former aristocrat Mary Viner (Florence Vidor) and her father, retired sea captain Hesketh Viner (Charles A. Stevenson), live in a small humble cottage on Doomsday, a large and valuable farm property owned by a wealthy landlord named Percival Fream (Lawrence Grant). Mary is attracted to another tenant at Doomsday, Arnold Furze (Gary Cooper), a young ex-officer and farmer who works the land with pride as if it were his own. Soon she and Arnold fall in love, but she longs to escape her oppressive poverty.