Mazie King, an adventurer, thanks to the good patronage of Mr. Niel, a society man, is invited to a birthday reception. Taking advantage of the opportunity, she lays out her plans to get away with some valuable jewels. Jim O'Bryan, the tool, sneaks in through a side window.
Ne'er-do-well Joe Louden scandalizes his small town and especially the proper Judge Pike. But through the love of young Ariel Taber, Joe shows the town who the real scoundrel is.
When Cindy Lane becomes pregnant, Mark Brierson, the father, refuses to marry her. Instead, Brierson romances Azalia Deering, whose father, General Deering, owns the town bank. Brierson misuses bank funds, but the bank is saved by Jack Rose, a wealthy farmer. Cindy's father Zeb vows to kill her lover, but she refuses to reveal the man's identity.
Sir Philip Randall, a prominent judge, is fed up with the antics of James, his scapegrace son, and tosses him out of the house. The conflict between father and son leaves Mrs. Randall heartbroken, and when she dies, she makes her husband swear to help James if he ever needs it. When Joe Merrion, a bookmaker, is found dead, circumstantial evidence points to Squire William Rufford. Although Randall can't believe he committed the crime, he is forced to convict him and sentence him to prison. But later, when James, whose wild ways have left him penniless, comes to his father for help, Randall discovers that he was the killer.
A story of treachery and intrigue, with the outcome of the story contingent upon a packet of "secret papers."
Although laborer Joe Mercer loves factory girl Katinka Jenkins, she agrees to become the mistress of Lindsay, the mill owner, in order to escape dire poverty and cruel parents. Katinka sends Lindsay's money to her family, but eventually, he finds himself unable to pay his employees, and only under Joe's influence are the men prevented from striking. Reformer John Strong, who loves Katinka's sister Olivia, visits Katinka to request that she cease her disgraceful dance performances, but he soon submits to her charms and is passionately embracing her when Olivia enters the room. Katinka then learns of the situation at the mill and realizes that the compromise of her honor has ruined more lives than her own.
Judge Randolph Legarde becomes a dual personality when he is kicked in the head by a horse.
Steve, a young college chap who has been unfortunate in his business career, after a life of dissipation, concludes that life is not worth living and contemplates suicide.
After his wife has run off with another man, New Yorker Bide Bennington decides to stay in Europe. After hearing of his wife's death years later, he returns home but finds it lonely there and heads West. While he is gone his house is robbed, and the leader of the crooks, Richard Glendo, leaves Bennington's coat and identification on an East River pier. The newspapers pick up on this and announce Bennington's "suicide." Since he is now officially deceased, Bennington decides to start life all over again -- but first he must foil a scheme by a gang of con artists, who have forced pretty Constance Brent to pose as Bennington's widow so that they can lay claim to his estate.
Unscrupulous gambler and drug addict Dunstan Leech has embezzled money entrusted to him. Hoping to cover the theft he plans to wed his mother’s ward Kate Heathcote, who is tutor to his disabled brother Cecil, only to discover she loves Richard Blunt. Unhinged, due to his drug use, he poisons his brother’s food to clear the way to an inheritance while his equally dishonest mother Mrs. Jelf attempts to frame Blunt for theft. That plan fails and Kate & Richard marry departing for the diamond mines of South Africa. Obsessed, Leech follows and kidnaps Kate and the couple’s child fleeing back to England pursued by Richard. Held hostage at Leech’s estate, his dying mother gives Kate the evidence to prove Dunstan’s culpability in Cecil’s slaying but driven mad with guilt and haunted by Cecil’s spirit he commits suicide, and the young family are reunited.
Gene Romaine lives in the solitude of Tall Pine Mountain with her father, fire warden for the Stanton Lumber Company. They live alone, but her mother's grave is in the little clearing and the father has promised never to leave it. To them comes McDaniels, the logging boss, who is attracted by Jean and offers her father to discard his Indian wife for the young girl. Romaine indignantly refuses and is threatened with dismissal. Gene, knowing he cannot bear to leave his wife's grave, assents to the marriage in spite of her father's protests. Stanton, chief owner of the lumber company, maroons his worthless son in the woods, in the hope of reforming him. Gene takes care of him when he sprains his ankle, and he protects her from McDaniels and is blamed for the murder of the boss when his vengeful Indian wife stabs him in the back.
Following the death of her father, a Maine trapper, Jennie Cox moves to New York to earn her living.
Neglected by her grief-stricken father, a doctor, after the tragic death of his wife, little Eileen Homer changes the wording of her father's ad for a governess to read: "Wanted, a mother." After much melodrama that’s just what she gets.
Four orphans, raised by an aging clown, becomes a high wire act in a circus. Lost film.
An old German toymaker, Hans Greyburg, living in a little flat on the east side of New York, while engaged one day making and dressing dolls, is visited by Dot Avery, the little girl from the flat above. He is fond of children and makes friends with her and gives her an old doll.
Mrs. Grant, a widow, has one son, Donald. He is not really a bad fellow, but is full of devilment and always getting himself into mischief. One day, he visits the village inn and follows this up by pinning a caricature of Elder McWirther on that gentleman's gate. It is decided by the deacons to expel him from the church.
Virginia Jameson, a girl of lovely disposition, is wooed by a man much older than herself whom she very much dislikes, but who stands very high in the favor of her parents. She might have married another man had not fate decreed otherwise. She meets and accidentally escapes the man she could have loved and would have married; she stooped to tie her shoe-strings, diverting her attention from him. Had their eyes met, both their lives would have been different. Leroy Farley, the man favored by her parents, prevails and she marries him. Her life is unhappy, notwithstanding his great riches and social prominence.
A usurer cancels a woman's debt in return for wresting a financial secret from a minister's wife.
Edward Thursfield, chief engineer of the bridge building firm of Henry Killick and Company, is building the largest concrete bridge in the world. Employed in the New York office is a young man named Arnold Faringay. Arnold sees an opportunity of using money from the payroll for a big deal.