A producer decides to reopen a theater, that had been closed five years previously when one of the actors was murdered during a performance, by staging a production of the same play with the remaining members of the original cast.
Irene, a feisty Irish girl in Philadelphia, clashes with her family and walks out, heading to New York City to seek fame and fortune. She gets a job as a dressmaker's model and becomes involved with Donald, the scion of a wealthy family. Donald's mother doesn't approve of Irene and sets out to discredit her in Donald's eyes.
A nobleman, posing as a necktie salesman, falls in love with the daughter of a circus puppeteer, even though he is already married to the daughter of his country's war minister.
The convict's cellmate, his time up, calls on the former's wife with a letter of introduction from the convict, and threatens to tell who her husband is unless she gives him money which she has earned by hard work as a stenographer and seamstress. The convict saves the warden's little daughter from drowning and is pardoned for his brave deed. Meanwhile his released cellmate forces the convict's wife again and again to give him money, and calling at her home one night, attempts to kiss her, but she repels him with a revolver. The pardoned convict arrives just in time to hear what passes and almost chokes his former cellmate to death.