Angela Chiaromonte is the daughter of a wealthy Italian prince who is killed in a fall from his horse. Though Angela stands to inherit half of a large estate, her older half-sister burns the will and thus inherits everything herself, throwing Angela into poverty. Fortunately, Angela is engaged to marry dashing Captain Giovanni Severi - but he soon is captured by Arabs while on an expedition to Africa. Believing him dead, Angela, dedicating her life to his memory, becomes a nun, unaware that her lover has escaped his captors and is returning to Italy. The dramatic climax takes place against a backdrop of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
Broker Henry Taylor is furious at the attention his wife Regina receives from Charles Bryant, an elderly bachelor. When he comes home one night and finds Regina in Bryant's arms, he orders him to leave. Bryant obliges, but he doesn't go away -- when the Taylors' daughter, Vivian, has a birthday, Bryant gives her a Shetland pony.
When Roberta Carruthers' father, Capt. Carruthers, is killed in France during the war, she comes to live in the US with her uncle. When she finds out that her uncle is under the impression that his brother had a son and not a daughter, she decides to disguise herself as a male, and calls herself Bob.
Carlyle Blackwell stars as an American in Germany at the outbreak of World War I. A mysterious stranger bursts into his room and proclaims him her husband. What's a gentleman to do? He poses as her husband to deliver "papers" to French headquarters. Adventure follows.
While vacationing in America, Prince Adolph of Syravia meets Jo Sheldon and they fall in love. Wealthy Mr. Bote, a friend of Jo's family whose ambition is to become a baron, gives Jo's stepmother money to pay her creditors, in return for a forged note in Jo's name which promises that Jo will marry the prince and have him bestow the title on Bote.
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.
Lithuanian immigrant, Jurgis Rudkus, gains a job in the Chicago stockyards. Once working at the stockyards he meets and marries Ona. But due to cut backs at the stockyards, loses his job, and they fall into financial hardship. Ona, in order to get money to feed their child, engages in sexual activity with her husband's foreman, Connor. Connor, rapes her. When Rudkus finds out about the affair, he throws Connor into a cattle pen where he is killed. While in prison Ona dies. When Rudkus gets out of prison he becomes an advocate for women via the Socialist Party. Considered a lost film.