A clergyman befriends a tramp after he has been turned away by the housekeeper. The tramp afterward meets the sister of the clergyman by the roadside and in a struggle for possession of her purse or some trinket injures her so that she dies. The tramp later invades a farmer’s property and is shot so that he feels himself mortally wounded. He rushes to the clergyman and makes confession, telling the story of the killing of the young woman. The clergyman recoils in horror, but when the officers arrive to arrest the tramp for the attempted robbery he refuses to give him up. The tramp later dies in great agony, but before he dies receives full pardon from the clergyman. The interest is heightened by the struggle which goes on in the clergyman’s mind as he is deciding whether to give up the wounded man or not. As he struggles the figure of Christ appears to him and exhorts him to have compassion.