Bright young doctor Ovid Vere changes his plans after the beautiful girl he follows one night turns out to be his step-cousin Carmina. Though she inherits a fortune, she must obey her father's dying wish and live with Ovid's mother. Ovid and Carmina fall in love despite her troubling fainting spells and his mother's attempts to keep them apart. There's more trouble ahead—in addition to this "heart-centered" plot, Collins also offers up a grimmer scientific one, featuring neurologist Nathan Benjulia, whose experimental use of live animals allows Collins to champion the antivivisectionist cause.