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At an amateur circus given by banker Fontenoy for his guests, Elena, his mistress and the wife of the Marquis Torre De Bianca, meets Robledo, her husband's boyhood friend, who has just arrived in Paris from the Argentine.

Fontenoy is insanely jealous of Robledo and upbraids Elena for flirting with him.  Yet, she leaves Fontenoy upon discovering his financial ruin, and he commits suicide.

Bianca, humiliated by the scandal, retires to the Argentine with Robledo, who is supervising the building of a dam, and takes Elena with him.

Although Robledo resents Elena's presence, he fights Duros, a local outlaw who is enamored of her and who tries to kidnap her, and a quarrel over her erupts into murder.

Duros dynamites the dam, and the villagers flee from the resulting flood.  Robledo swears to kill Elena, but passion overcomes his wrath.  Realizing her defeat, Elena leaves him and returns to Paris, where she sinks to drunkenness and degradation.