Summary
A blizzard, white as amnesia, claws at the timbered ribs of Montana; into this cathedral of frost staggers Doctor Jim Barnes—coat glazed, breath a fragile ghost—until he buckles across the threshold of Esther Anderson’s candle-lit cabin, a lone tabernacle amid the howl. Esther, her eyes bruised by step-father fists and hunger, stitches warmth around the stranger while the last sack of flour sighs empty. Determined to barter morphine for grain, Jim sleds into the maw of the storm, collapses beneath oblivious stars, and vanishes. Believing herself forsaken, Esther trades hearth smoke for greasepaint, riding boxcars with a threadbare troupe whose footlights promise escape yet drip with predatory smiles. Seasons wheel; Jim, resurrected, traces her across prairie scars and proscenium dust, only to be poisoned by a rival’s whispered slander. One glance—knife-quick—severs trust, and Jim recoils, leaving Esther to drift eastward where a possessive painter shackles her in gilded promises. Meanwhile Sam Tuttle—laconic friend, keeper of both their unspoken chronicles—ferries Jim toward Manhattan’s clangor, timing arrival to the brittle brink of vows, ready to wrench destiny’s gears before the final curtain falls.
Synopsis
During a raging Montana snowstorm, Doctor Jim Barnes collapses at Esther Anderson's cabin door. Esther offers Jim refuge, but when he discovers that their food supplies are running dangerously low, he braves the journey into town in order to replenish them. On the way, he is overcome with exhaustion and fails to return. Esther, unaware of Jim's condition and abused by her stepfather, joins a theatrical troop and leaves home. Time passes and Jim finally finds Esther, but a vindictive member of her troupe accuses her of having an affair with the manager and Jim believes the accusation. He leaves and Esther goes to New York City where she becomes engaged to a jealous artist, although she still loves Jim. Sam Tuttle, a long time friend, is aware of Esther's continuing love, and so brings Jim to New York City in time to save Esther from an unhappy marriage.
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