Allayne Norman's husband Bruce is a gambler and drunkard who kills her artist cousin in an argument. Bruce flees the studio with Allayne and their son, and places his identifying documents in the pockets of an amnesiac man. To avoid the consequences of his actions, Allayne identifies the man as her husband. When Bruce returns, he tries to kill the man but is shot instead. The man regains his memory and is cleared of wrongdoing.
George Dryden, an atheist since he saw his mother struck and killed by lightning as a kid, becomes a prominent surgeon and marries a woman who soon dies of heart disease. Years later, on his daughter's wedding day, he discovers that his wife had a serious love affair with an artist. Infuriated, he drives his daughter away. She becomes ill, suffering an emotional collapse. The doctor exhausts his knowledge trying to save her and finally, in desperation, he calls upon God. The girl is miraculously cured and George Dryden's faith is restored. A lost film.
Badger, a clerk at a Wall Street brokerage, discovers that his boss Gideon Bloodgood has swindled an investor, Fairweather, out of his money. Fairweather dies of a heart attack after an argument with Bloodgood, and Badger uses this knowledge to blackmail him. By a strange coincidence, Bloodgood's daughter Lucy runs over Fairweather's son, Paul, and cripples him.
On her wedding day, Norma Huntley wants to tell Edward Berkley, her husband-to-be, her secret -- that she mothered a child out of wedlock which subsequently died. Her mother forbids her to reveal this. Only moments after the ceremony, it is discovered that the child, now three, is actually alive. Berkley, incensed at this turn of events, agrees to adopt the child and remain married for appearance's sake -- but when he finds the father, he will kill him.
Sylvia, a model in the shop of a fashionable dressmaker, is introduced to the Hicks family, which recently has acquired a fortune through iron ore deposits discovered on their farm. Octavia Hicks sees in the cultured but unpretentious Sylvia a good match for her son Henry and invites the young woman to visit the Hicks home. Two other visitors, Frank Hayward and his accomplice Annie, are masquerading as a count and a princess in order to con the country-born millionaires out of their money. The two are introduced to Sylvia, who soon discovers their plots and exposes them. A mysterious foreign gentleman appears and announces that the fashion model is actually the Princess Sylvia of Karalyn, but she renounces her title to marry Henry.
Andrew Maxwell is so intent on creating a universal language that he completely neglects his wife, Laurette, and daughter, Ruth. Laurette decides she wants to return to the stage and is encouraged by Charles Prescott, a former suitor. When Maxwell discovers Laurette and Prescott together, he berates her, and she angrily moves out, taking Ruth along with her.
Arnold L'Hommedieu and his friends Archie Hartogensis and Hugo Waldemar go to New York to find work after being unfairly expelled from college. Arnold starts off as helpful and idealistic, but after being beaten down by life, he decides he is only after money and becomes an opium smuggler. His pals have fared no better: Archie becomes a drug addict and is in debt thanks to his spendthrift fiancee, while Hugo has lost his money after investing in a show that flopped. The two go to Arnold for financial aid. They await a shipment of opium, but the police are onto them and raid the hideout; only Arnold evades the cops.