By his father’s deathbed, the young Karl Victor von Sendlingen swears that he will never make the same mistake his father made in his youth: to marry a girl beneath his own station. The promise proves to have fatal consequences when Karl Victor falls in love with a young governess, whom he impregnates but refuses to marry as this would break his oath to his father. Many years later, he is a highly respected president of the court about to deal out judgment to a young woman who has killed her new-born child. The young woman turns out to be hi...
