The daughter of a notorious smuggler is raised as a boy by her foster mother.

Her father having served a prison sentence, there is unending gossiping about Therese's family. Unable to put up with it any longer, the young woman leaves her native village for the canton of Bern where she manages to be hired by Anton Muller, a wealthy, authoritarian farmer. Under the young woman's spell, Anton wants to make his servant his mistress but Thérèse refuses energetically.. Later on, she nevertheless accepts to marry Anton. On the wedding day, she meets Gottfried, her bridegroom's son, and they instantly fall passionately in love with each other.

As he sets off for the countryside outside Geneva a taxi-driver hears a gunshot and notices a shadowy figure slipping away from the scene. So begins a series of strange incidents.