Niel Musgrave plans to elope with Mrs. Vane but his uncle, Sir Anthony, threatens to disinherit him, and he goes away with the promise that when she is free he will marry her. In the north of England he meets Brenda, daughter of the Reverend Mr. Marston, and falls in love with her. The old clergyman dies suddenly, and Noel, who dares not marry Brenda openly in defiance of his uncle, takes her to Withiel, on the Scotch side of the border where, in the presence of her retainer Hamish and another witness, they are married according to the Scotch law. Five years later, Colonel Tressider, Sir Anthony's bosom friend, is on a hunting trip through the North of England when he meets Noel and informs him that his uncle has died, leaving him fortune and title. Amy Vane is free to marry him. Noel, tired of Brenda, is persuaded by Tressider to forsake her, inasmuch as Withiel is not on the Scotch side of the border and they are not legally married. Brenda takes their child, Roy, and departs, warning Noel that he who sows shall reap the harvest. Noel marries Amy Vane. Fifteen years later she dies, and her daughter Lettice meets Roy, now a fledgling artist under the assumed name of Mitchell. Noel learns that Roy is his son. Brenda makes Roy swear to obey her blindly, then tells him that he can never marry Lettice. She scorns Noel's plea for forgiveness, even when he tells her that Tressider had been in error about the legality of their marriage. But in the end her pride is broken, and she obeys the dictates of her heart, finding happiness again with Noel and the young lovers.