Dr. Paul Venner, a brilliant research psychiatrist, is driven from Budapest by his superior, who has published and taken credit for Paul's work. In London, an old friend, Dr. Drewett, introduces him to the head of a Scottish sanatorium who offers him the opportunity to continue his research on dementia praecox, a disease from which Paul's father suffered.
Dr. Mary Murray becomes his laboratory assistant. They fall in love, but she plans to engage in medical missionary work in China in a year's time. Paul convinces her to remain with him, and the two become engaged. A fire breaks out in the lab, and Mary dies saving Paul's irreplaceable records. Heartbroken, Paul declines posts at several prestigious universities in order to realize Mary's dream of helping the sick in war-torn China.
