Florence Brent is the daughter of Bennington Brent, who runs a successful laundry business. Florence's childhood friend, John Oglesby, is a Congressman. When Florence visits her friend, Eleanor Williamson, in Washington D.C., she meets Eleanor's fiancé, who is a Count. The Duke of Buritz, a countryman of the Count, tries to corrupt Oglesby for political reasons. Meanwhile, the Count breaks his engagement to Eleanor, having become enamored of Florence. Oglesby eventually exposes the duplicity of the Count and Duke.
A widowed farmer, failing in his efforts to find a woman capable of running his household, decides to marry a young woman he believes can fill the bill. Wat he doesn't know is that she is running away from a brutish and violent husband, whom she has discovered is also a bigamist, and that her angry and vengeful husband is looking for her.
Mademoiselle Gobette, a pretty young actress, visits the offices of the Minister of Justice, Cyprienne Gaudet. Simultaneously, Madame Galipaux arrives to speak to the Minister on behalf of her husband. Gaudet mistakes Madame Galipaux for the new cleaning woman, and Mademoiselle Gobette for Madame Galipaux, leading to farcical complications when Monsieur Galipaux arrives.
After a spectacular college football career, John Harkless leaves the university to pursue a place in Indiana politics. He buys the failing Plattville Herald and, using the newspaper to expose various illegal activities, sets out to rid the county of all mobsters and corrupt officials.
Russian brothers Count Boris and Alexis Rabourdin obtain a Japanese coastline defense map and plan to sell it to German agents in London. In America, Alexis schemes to marry wealthy Eve Bertram, who loves him. Boris, meanwhile, falls in love with Christine Lesley, Eve's neighbor whom Eve's brother Guy, an amateur inventor experimenting with explosives, also loves.
Set during the Balkan Wars, The Captive tells the story of Sonia, a young woman living in Montenegro and left to care for her younger brother Milos and the family farm when older brother Marko goes off to battle. Unable to handle the day-to-day tasks following her brother’s tragic death, help comes in the form of Mahmud Hassan, a captured Turk nobleman, now a prisoner of war. Tasked with helping Sonia, their initial frosty relationship soon melts into love. As the war rages on Sonia, Mahmud and Milos will face near-insurmountable obstacles in their quest for a better life amidst the hell of war.
In Montegro brothers Stefan and Michael kidnap American heiress Delight Warren. Stefan marries her so he can claim her wealth, but then they fall in love.
Count Von Herbeck, the chancellor to the Grand Duke of Ehrenstein, is married but keeps the fact secret on account of his high ambitions. His wife, dying, writes him a letter urging him to make their little child a great lady. A lost film.