Plot Summary

A mysterious stranger appears at the door of a farmhouse on a stormy night and asks for shelter. The young widow who owns the farm puts him up in the barn. At dawn, he helps to deliver a calf and, just as mysteriously and distantly, disappears down the road. In the spring, he returns to stay as a farmhand, gains the respect of the widow and the devotion of her young son, and begins to end their feelings of loneliness. When an intruder, in the person of a rich merchant, shows up and presses his attentions on the widow, the farmhand saves her from his attentions. But there is a mystery about where the stranger came from; and why, after winning the hearts of the widow and her son, he has to go away again.