While in New Orleans to mastermind a gambling house heist, Beth Austin learns from an oculist that she must undergo an operation or go blind, but she decides to keep the news to herself and proceeds with the robbery. Posing as a wealthy gambler, Beth has the manager open the safe just as Matt Jackson, her lover and partner, arrives with men impersonating state troopers to raid the casino and confiscate the money. The next day, Beth tells Matt, who is insanely jealous, that she is going to an eye surgery specialist near Indianapolis for the operation and begs him to lay low until she returns. After checking in at the hospital, Beth meets the specialist, Dr. Ben Halleck, and prepares for the experimental surgery. In New Orleans, meanwhile, the manager of the gambling house reports the robbery to the police and expresses his suspicions about Beth. After Franklin, an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, traces Beth to the hospital, he learns through Beth's fingerprints, which he obtains with the help of a nurse, that she served a prison sentence for embezzlement several years before. Meanwhile, Matt disregards Beth's instructions and tries to call her at the hospital, then becomes frustrated when she is too incapacitated to answer. As he and his brother Will return to their Virginia cabin in a trailer that Will's wife Ann is driving, Will taunts Matt about Beth's absence. In a fit of rage, Matt throws a bottle of whiskey out of the moving vehicle, then impulsively shoots a state trooper who stops them. The Jacksons ditch the trailer, and later, when the trailer is found, the brothers are connected to the murder. Beth's fingerprints then are found in the trailer and tie them to the robbery. Hoping that Beth will lead them to the Jacksons, Franklin puts her on surveillance. Ben comes to admire her courage during Beth's two weeks of convalescence, and Beth, too, is becoming attracted to the doctor. Matt, still frustrated by his fruitless attempts to talk to Beth, hires a private detective to find out if she is seeing another man. Later, Beth is released from the hospital, but remains in the area for post-operative testing. Ben asks her for a date, but when an emergency keeps him from meeting her, Joe Crossland, the investigator hired by Matt, approaches her directly, warning her about his jealous client. She informs him that her phones are tapped, and suspecting that someone is trying to get to Matt through her, she plans to use Ben to disappear from the area. Later, she manipulates Ben into agreeing to drive her to Indianapolis, where she plans to sneak away, but Ben gets an emergency call and has to stop at the state women's prison. As Beth waits in the car, Ben tends his patient, who dies. Depressed, Ben and Beth abandon their plans for the city, and go to his house, where she meets his nine-year-old daughter Susan. Ben, whose wife abandoned him years before, asks Beth to stay, but tearfully Beth tells him that she must leave the next day. In the morning, Ben shows up at her hotel room to invite her to accompany him on a house call in the country, hoping they can sort out their feelings. After Ben leaves, the eavesdropping Crossland shows up and, after making a pass at Beth, offers to double-cross Matt, but Beth sends him away. At the hospital, Franklin tells Ben about Beth's connection to the Jackson brothers and how the FBI believes he is being used. Although pleased to find Beth waiting in his car, Ben says little on the drive out of town. When they arrive at the farmhouse, Ben, needing to operate on the injured boy, sends Beth to the druggist for plasma. After arranging for the plasma's delivery, Beth heads for the bus station, but then changes her mind and returns to the farmhouse. On the drive back, Ben tells Beth that he knows about her past, but still wants her to stay. However, Beth, who feels obligated to Matt because he helped her when she left prison, boards a bus. When she arrives at the Jacksons' cabin, after learning from Ann and Will that Matt has gone to Indiana to kill Ben, Beth convinces them to help her stop him. Meanwhile, Matt kills Crossland, then goes to the hospital to wait for Ben, who is performing an after-hours surgery. A suspicious nurse secretly calls Franklin, who arrives with backup shortly after Beth and the Jacksons show up. Will shoots at them and is injured, but Beth finds Matt in an observation room over the surgery area trying to pick out Ben from the group of masked faces. When Beth prevents Matt from shooting Ben, Matt shoots her, then battles with the police, who apprehend him. After Beth's gunshot wound is treated, she is turned over to the police, but because she saved Ben, Franklin plans to ask the judge for leniency. Still in love, Matt tells Beth he will stand by her.