A few days before the planned wedding of the chief inheritor von Halleborg, he experiences a terrible blow: his beloved bride Julia has a riding accident and dies of her injuries. Von Halleborg becomes a broken man and chooses not to waste another moment thinking of love -- his heart belongs to Julia ... forever. In doing so, von Halleborg runs the risk of losing his entire estate, for the conditions of inheritance make all to clear that if he does not marry by his 45th birthday, the estate is to be turned over to someone else. Von Halleborg had already made peace with this fact until he discovers that the future lord of the manor will be his nephew Oskar, a selfish and ruthless scoundrel, concerned only with money.