贝琳达（简·怀曼 Jane Wyman 饰）是出生在贫困家庭之中的农家女，天生又聋又哑，失去了一切和外界交流的途径。贝琳达的母亲在生她的时候因为难产而去世了，父亲因此将全部的责任都推卸到了无辜的贝琳达身上，对她不闻不问。好在还有一位善良的罗伯特医生（刘·艾尔斯 Lew Ayres 饰），他非常同情贝琳达的遭遇，热情的教给了她很多她的父亲从来不会教给她的人生道理。在罗伯特的帮助下，贝琳达渐渐懂得了如何与人交往。 一个流氓看上了贝琳达美丽的外貌，将她玷污了，不仅如此，贝琳达还怀上了流氓的孩子，可是人人都道这个孩子是罗伯特医生的。Dr. Robert Richardson, a dedicated young general practitioner, seeks to establish himself in an isolated fishing village on Cape Breton Island off the Nova Scotia coast. The population is poor and the struggling physician generally gets paid for his efforts in barter. When he meets Belinda McDonald, a young deaf mute callously dismissed by family and neighbors as "the dummy," he alone senses her innate intelligence. He overcomes the initial skepticism of her flinty, gruff father and indifferently cold aunt, who operate a hardscrabble grist mill and farm, and devotes himself to teaching the young girl sign language and lip-reading. Hopes are even raised that she might even eventually qualify for a medical procedure that might improve her condition. Her optimism is crushed, however, when she raped by Locky McCormick, a brutish local fisherman. Traumatized, she is unable to communicate the outrage to her family, who are baffled and angry when they learn she is pregnant. The local gossips blame the doctor, and he and the McDonalds become pariahs, unable to earn a living in the provincial village. Matters come to a head when McCormick and his new wife pressure the local council to declare Belinda an unfit mother and declare them the baby's legal guardians.
