The story recounts the murder of an itinerant Jew (Jules Maurice)by the village Burgomaster (Harry Baur.) Years go by and Baur's crime does not weigh heavily on his conscience. But at a banquet one night, the subject of the killing comes up and he faints, and is haunted from that point onward by the vision of the man he killed and the sound of the sleigh bells that first accompanied the victim's arrival in the village. And, to complicate matters for Baur, the son of the victim arrives, and proceeds to fall in love with Baur's daughter.