Antoinette has a husband, the Comte de Mongaillard, who treats her as a tiresome girl whom he cannot be persuaded to love. Despairing of him, she solaces herself with her baby daughter. But here too, the Comte acts like an enemy. He loves the child, and takes her away to be brought up by a woman friend. Antoinette realises that while her husband lives she will never regain her baby. The opportunity comes to destroy the Comte. Antoinette imagines that she will not hesitate; the choice is, after all, between her husband who seems to despise her, and the daughter she adores. But when the moment for action arrives she finds, to her immense astonishment, that to choose is not so easy after all.