Feyder's scenario very closely follows Don José's own account of his story and his fatal relation with the gypsy Carmen in the third chapter of Mérimée's short novel.
A sailor falls in love with an innkeeper on a lost island.
Charles Walter, a forestry contractor, has helped Noël Portal to start a new life. When Victor, the new foreman and Charles'wife's lover, is found murdered, everything points to the guilt of the deceived husband. To save his benefactor, Noël decides to accuse himself of the the crime. He is condemned to death.
