It is 1831. British King William IV has appointed a new governor (
Cecil Parker) for New South Wales in Australia. In full dress military redcoat and cocked hat at an arrival ceremony, he gives a brief speech that is marred by disrespectful comments from some rowdies in the crowd.
A younger cousin of the governor, Charles Adare (
Michael Wilding) has traveled with him from Ireland. Even before the end of the speech, Charles is approached by a local banker who offers his services. Charles admits he doesn't have a penny, yet hopes to make his fortune in Sydney. The banker says he can help anyway, so Charles agrees to meet him the next day.
During the next day's appointment, a powerful local landowner named Sam Flusky (
Joseph Cotten) enters the bank and the banker points him out to Charles as an example of what fortunes might be made in Australia even with a convict background. Charles asks to be introduced, as he seems to recall the last name. The banker warns him that in Australia it is not acceptable manners to ask about a person's past or convict status. Upon introduction, Flusky recognizes the name Adare, and almost immediately proposes a business deal requiring no capital when he learns that Charles is a cousin of the Governor. Flusky offers Charles a temporary loan to acquire a certain land parcel that Flusky wants but cannot purchase directly because of legal limits on land grant applications, and Charles agrees to help with the promise of a huge quick profit.
Charles later tells his uncle about the plan. But when the uncle wants to know about Flusky, Attorney General Corrigan (
Denis O'Dea) strongly discourages any deals, saying that Flusky is now acting within the law but is a very unsavory character with a criminal past. The Governor then orders Charles to avoid Flusky.
Since he wants the easy money, Charles disobeys the uncle and accepts an invitation to dine at Flusky's home. He comes to dinner at Flusky's large and elegant home in a carriage. The driver comments on Flusky's low social prestige despite his wealth and translates a motto displayed at the entrance: "Minyago Yugilla?" means "Why Weepest Thou?" Charles walks around the house before ringing the entrance bell, overhears and witnesses things that tell him that Flusky is using him to climb in social standing because he is the Governor's relative, and also that Milly the housekeeper (
Margaret Leighton) is a willful tyrant who keeps the kitchen staff under control with a whip.
As other guests arrive, including Attorney General Corrigan, they are all male, as all wives invited give an excuse not to attend. And, as reported by Milly, Sam's wife is not well, and also will not attend.
Halfway through the meal, Sam's wife (
Ingrid Bergman) comes down the stairs in bare feet and dressed in something that is more like a nightgown than a dinner dress. She welcomes the gentlemen, and walks unsteadily to sit at the head of the table.
Charles recognizes Mrs. Flusky as Lady Henrietta, an aristocratic neighbor he remembers as a child growing up in Ireland. "Hattie" was a friend of Charles's sister. He sits next to Hattie, she recognizes him, and is happy to recall events of their past. But it appears Hattie is an alcoholic and on the verge of madness.
After a short while Hattie decides to go upstairs to her room, but on arriving there, she utters a terrified scream calling for Charles. Charles rushes up and finds Hattie trembling outside the door and talking about the horrible thing on the bed. Charles enters the bedroom, finds nothing, yet shoots into the fireplace and comes out comforting Hattie and saying nothing can hurt her any more.
Af the guests leave, Sam expresses his displeasure at the guests' wives who snubbed his invitation, and his gratitude to Charles because he saw that Hattie had been genuinely pleased and interested to have seen him. Sam encourages Charles to come again hopes that the younger man's friendship will be able to cheer up his wife. In Sam's view, Hattie's condition is the result of isolation and of being snubbed by the social establishment, and the fact that they became different people in a different environment after the years of his imprisonment. They're now an unhappy couple who are shunned by established society. Charles agrees to try to help her regain a sense of stability.
Meantime, Milly is seen giving alcohol to Hattie and spying suspiciously on Charles.
Charles recalls the details of the scandal back in Ireland: Lady Henrietta, of the landed gentry and Sam Flusky, a groom on her estate eloped to England. They were pursued by her brother, and when they were found, Flusky shot him dead. As the brother was armed and had also fired a shot, Flusky was not hung but taken to Australia.
Lady Henrietta followed him to Australia and waited for his seven year term to end. When Sam was released they found they had much changed during those years, and the marriage was not happy. Sam concentrated on becoming rich and being able to afford material goods for Hattie, but it wasn't enough, Hattie started to drink and lost interest in everything. In the following years, the relationship with Sam had not recovered, and had been made worse by Henrietta's increasing alcoholism.
Meantime the household is run by Milly. who keeps it functioning, and keeps Lady Henrietta under control.
Charles insists on completing the land deal with Flusky. This angers his cousin the governor, who expels him. As Charles has as yet no money, he turns to Sam, who invites him to move in and try to cheer up and rehabilitate Hattie, getting her to become interested in horseback riding, in clothes, and life itself. He moves in, and slowly revives the self-reliant woman that Hattie was once.
One of his first successes is to convince Hattie to look at her own reflection, as in a mirror, for the first time in years. But Charles' efforts to rehabilitate Hattie conflict with Milly's aspirations of control. Milly keeps throwing up various snags to upset the recovery. Charles begins to notice this, but not Sam.
At one point, Hattie becomes confident enough to try to run her own household and kitchen without Milly. However, Milly has undermined Hattie's authority with the kitchen staff. The kitchen help, used to Milly's control, disobeys, and Hattie realizes that she has no say in her own house. She locks herself in her bedroom and refuses to come out. Charles, encouraged by Sam, enters her bedroom through a balcony and convinces Hattie not to give up. When Milly is called to the bedroom to help the mistress undress for bed, she knocks and because the door is locked and Charles is there she accuses them to be in a physical relationship, despite the fact that Sam had been standing below outside and probably was aware of everything that went on in that room.
In desperation, Milly arranges to expose Hattie's hidden collection of empty wine bottles from the bedroom to humiliate her in front of the servants. This last trick backfires, Milly threatens to resign and leave, and, to her surprise, she is ousted from the house. Once Milly is ousted, Hattie takes real control of the kitchen, and her recovery proceeds ever faster.
One day, Charles brings in an invitation to the Governors ball, addressed to Sam and Hattie. A dress is ordered, Hattie dresses up beautifully, but at the last minute Sam refuses to go and insists that Charles escort Hattie in his place. He is feeling rejected because he bought a spectacular ruby necklace that he intends to give to Hattie, but before he gives it, Hattie and Charles comment that ruby color isnt the best match for the coloring of the dress she is wearing.
At the ball, Hattie is stunning and catches the Governor's eye. Before he realizes who she is, he shows her great deference and admiration. Meantime, the reception staff has identified her invitation as a forgery. But the governor insists that she stay, including Charles, whom he had ordered expelled from the ball shortly before.
Right after Hattie and Charles leave for the ball, Milly, approaches Sam at his home, and asks to be taken back. It is clear that she is in love with Sam and wants to replace Hattie. Sam listens to her long plea in a speech that insinuates in all conceivable ways that Hattie is either having an affair with Charles or in any case is humiliating Sam by appearing in public with Charles instead of her husband or failing that, that everyone will think they are in love and thus humiliate Sam even more and the results could be socially disastrous. She also works in that Charles and Hattie are of a different social class from Sam, that they have views and conventions that allow them to do things that would be considered shameful for ordinary, non-aristocratic people.
At first Sam does not react, since, after all, Charles is substantially younger than Hattie, and anyway his demeanor throughout has been that of a male who is not interested in women, much too interested in clothing, and always impeccably dressed. But Milly eventually manages to make Sam enraged about the situation.
Sam goes to the ball, makes a scene, humiliates Hattie, who returns home upset and weeping.
Charles follows Hattie home and attempts to calm her. Hattie tearfully confesses to Charles how she deeply loves and is honor bound to Sam, because it was she who shot her own brother, not Sam, and Sam took the blame to save her from prison.
Sam returns to the house, demands that Charles leave for good. Charles takes a horse but regretfully the horse stumbles and breaks a leg, forcing him to return. Sam gets a gun, kills the horse, and as he re-enters the house, in a combination of anger and accident, Charles is shot.
Sam is immediately incarcerated, as his convict past demands immediate jail for any violent offense.
Hattie, in an attempt to save Sam, confesses to having shot her brother, the crime that led to Sam's original conviction. But such a confession brings complications, in that Sam would be freed only if Hattie were sent back for trial. They are in a real dilemma: If Sam corroborates Hattie's confession, he goes free and she goes to jail. If he does not corroborate her confession, he goes to prison for good. The Attorney General is not being helpful, since the governor wants to jail somebody for having shot his cousin. Corrigan gives Sam twenty four hours to make up his mind about what his story is.
Meantime, Milly, seeing her chances to get Sam slipping away, attempts to poison Hattie. She is discovered in her plot, found to have planted a shrunken head at the bed to frighten Hattie from time to time, and ousted.
Meantime Charles has recovered from the wound, and, at the critical moment, reappears to vouch that he was shot in a true accident and not in a violent act by Sam.
Charles is put back on a ship to return to Ireland and is waved goodbye by the now happy Sam and Hattie.
company.