 As the Great War breaks out, Ann Vickers, a serious, independent and forthright woman, falls for an officer who jilts her before she can tell him she s pregnant. After an abortion, she throws herself into social work, stirring things up at a woman s prison and writing a best-seller about the experience. Back in Manhattan, she runs a halfway house for paroled women and meets an equally free-thinking jurist, Barney Dolphin, who s estranged from his wife (she doesn t believe in divorce) and under investigation for corruption. Ann and he begin an affair and have a child just as he s indicted. Scandal ruins her career. Can they flaunt convention and find happiness?