A crooked politician finds himself being accused of murder by a gangster from whom he refused help during a re-election campaign.
J.B. Ball, a rich financier, gets fed up with his free-spending family. He takes his wife's just-bought (very expensive) sable coat and throws it out the window, it lands on poor hard-working girl Mary Smith. But it isn't so easy to just give away something so valuable, as he soon learns.
Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell struggles to free his country from English rule, but his relationship with married Katie O'Shea threatens to ruin all his dreams of freedom.
Aspiring young Scottish politician John Shand enters into an unusual agreement with the wealthy Wylie family -- if they fund his education, he must marry their daughter, Maggie. Staying true to his word, John weds Maggie and begins a successful career, thanks largely to his savvy wife. The couple's relationship is placed in jeopardy when John faces temptation in the form of the lovely aristocrat Lady Sybil Tenterden.
Intending that her son, Herbert, marry debutante Mildred Vane, Mrs. Consuelo Carter is most dismayed when she learns that Herbert has fallen in love with Pat Murray, a model in Darrow's dress shop. Pat's emphatic refusal to take Mrs. Carter's "suggestion" that she give up Herbert leads to her being fired, and she reluctantly accepts Herbert's invitation to weekend at the Carter country home. Finally realizing the hopelessness of the situation, Pat makes a spectacle of herself at a party; but Herbert is not fooled, and their love triumphs.
During the American Civil War, A Union-Army officer is ordered by U. S. President Abraham Lincoln to bring in Belle Starr, the leader of a Missouri guerrilla band, dead or alive. However, he falls in love with her, does not bring her in, and is facing a court-martial.
American mining engineer Jim McClellan is in love with Dolores de Silva, daughter of the deposed president of a Latin American country. He becomes involved in the revolution....
When English nobleman Marcus Heriot marries the young Canadian Wanda his family, especially his mother, reject her because of her outsider status. Lady Heriot engineers a scandal that ruins their marriage and after has Wanda’s child declared illegitimate. Years pass during which Wanda and her son Robin rebuild their lives through toil. Now grown Robin enters the military, and Marcus reenters their lives wanting to give the young man his name.
The owner of vast diamond mines, John Quelch is constantly fearful of theft and convinced that any woman will "sell her soul" for diamonds, he deals harshly with any employee caught stealing and has Lady Margot Cork watched while she is visiting Lorraine Temple. John and Margot fall in love, but she cancels their engagement when she learns of the "brutal" punishment of Jim Wingate for swallowing a diamond.
Jailed unjustly for a murder he did not commit, a young man uses his amazing powers of escape to free himself and pursue the actual killers, who hold his fiancée captive.
Revolutionary War heroine Betsy Ross finds herself in competition with her sister for the affections of a British soldier.
Young minister Brand Cameron meets stage star Adrienne Durant at her father's humble country home. Believing her an innocent country girl, Cameron falls in love with her. She confesses her racier life and returns to New York. Cameron follows, unable to give Adrienne up, his parishioners denounce him and force him to resign. He departs, accepting a post in a tough lumber camp while Adrienne accepts the charge of a school for poor children. Later Faro Kate falsely accuses Cameron of fathering her child enraging the lumbermen who set fire to his church. Discovering Kate's baby is trapped inside Cameron risks his like to save the child causing Kate to retract her lie and Adrienne comes to join him in his new ministry.
Loyal slave of the aristocratic Dabney family, Dan is overjoyed when Raoul becomes engaged to Northerner Elsie Hammond and his sister Grace becomes engaged to Elsie's brother John. When the Civil War breaks out, the heartbroken Hammonds return North and John joins the Union army. Raoul joins the Confederacy, but his vindictive overseer, Jonas Watts, becomes a Union officer. Watts takes Grace prisoner, but before he can act on his desires, John rescues her.