Charm school graduate and model Leonora Eames has always dreamed of wealth, and she makes a fateful mistake when she marries Smith Ohlrig, a glamorous but unstable multimillionaire who has never married for love. He enters marriage as an act of defiance after a psychiatrist predicts the union will ruin them; the psychiatrist also declares Ohlrig's heart condition psychosomatic. From the start, the marriage stands on manipulation and control rather than affection, with Ohlrig isolating his wife, nitpicking at her, displaying furious jealousy, and insisting she stay up late to be available whenever he returns. His flunky, Franzi Kartos, participates in this coercive dynamic.
When Ohlrig orders her to take a vacation, she asserts she will leave and find work instead. “You'll be back,” he coolly warns. She leaves the room, and he experiences another attack, which he halts by taking a pill.
Penniless, Leonora leaves Ohlrig and seeks work with an obstetrician, Dr. Hoffman, and a pediatrician, Larry Quinada, who run a practice in a poor neighborhood. Under their guidance, she learns to perform competently and gain self-respect. Quinada senses she looks familiar, though he cannot place where he has seen her before.
Ohlrig appears at Leonora's apartment and promises a fresh start, the honeymoon they never had. The next morning, at a Long Island house, she discovers that the trip was a business arrangement. Seeing through him at last, she returns to the doctors’ office and resumes her life of honest work.
She visits Dr. Hoffman, suspecting that she may have conceived during the reconciliation, and he promises not to tell Quinada, though he believes Quinada would understand the situation.
Leonora and Larry Quinada go out for a wonderful evening, and he proposes. She agrees to marry him, but wants to settle a personal matter first. She disappears, telling only her landlady that she is moving to Long Island. Quinada eventually locates her at Ohlrig’s home, where she discovers that they are indeed married. Quinada, having learned through newspapers about the marriage, understands why she seems so familiar to him. He leaves, only to be blocked by Leonora, who explains that she is pregnant and that she came back to Ohlrig to give the child the security money could provide. Quinada wants to marry her, but he warns that after three minutes with Ohlrig, he knows the man is dangerous and will ruin the child. Ohlrig then uses the question of paternity and the threat to keep the baby in order to force Leonora to stay with him. He admits that he never loved her and hates himself for the marriage, and she pleads with him not to take the child.
Excerpts from gossip columns from April to October follow the pregnancy and the rumors of Ohlrig’s cruelty. He deprives Leonora of sleep, awakens her at all hours, and drags her out at night; Franzi Kartos reaches his limit and quits, preferring to return to a head waiter’s life.
Ohlrig experiences an angina attack, and Leonora fears she may have caused it, so she calls Quinada for help. When Quinada arrives, the house fills with medical staff, and Leonora collapses as Quinada rushes her to the hospital. In the ambulance, he reassures her that Ohlrig is in perfect health. Dr. Hoffman delivers the premature baby, which does not survive. Leonora recovers, and Ohlrig loses any leverage over her. Dr. Hoffman grants Quinada two minutes with her, and a nurse brings Leonora’s mink coat to the room. Dr. Hoffman remarks that if his diagnosis is correct, Leonora won’t want it.
