When her affair with a married man (Jean-Pierre Aumont) is discovered by her bacteriologist husband (Bill Travers), an aimless American socialite (Eleanor Parker) is issued an ultimatum: join her spouse in a remote Chinese village where he'll help combat a brutal cholera epidemic or face a humiliatingly public divorce that will ruin their lives. Can a stillborn love be awakened in a jumbled atmosphere of hatred and death? Could a searching heart uncover the willing spirit within?