Absent

When Jasper Leigh calls on Professor Hunt to ask for his daughter, Mary's, hand in marriage, the Professor tells him that the girl is too young. He also tells Jasper that Mary believes her mother dead, but that she had eloped with another man. Leigh encounters a ragged and worn woman, who proves to be Mary's mother.

Rupert returns to his Canadian home after five years, an officer of the Royal Mounted Police, under orders to capture some illicit distillers. Jacques, an invalid, being unable to make farming pay, has, unknown to his sister, Philomel, been induced by Antoine, a suitor for the hand of Philomel, to join him in the illicit whiskey traffic.

Henry Ranson, a soldier, returns home and finds his sweetheart is going to marry another man. He seeks consolation from General Craddock, a retired army officer. Craddock tells, young Ranson his story. General Craddock, years before in India, was very happy with his wife. Captain Alva stole the woman's affections.

Happy in her devotion to her unfortunate sister and the promise of honest love that had come into her life, the girl was perhaps blind to true values. She became indifferent to her life and its surroundings. Accordingly she accepted the stranger and his doubtful promises. Honest love and duty were forgotten, until, caught near life's uncertain edge, she was called back by her blind sister's peril. Thus was true love separated from blind infatuation and life's lesson learned.

The girl's lessons from the young station agent on the manipulation of the telegraph code served her in good stead. By it, hemmed in on all sides at the lonely farmhouse, she was able to save both herself and her father's money from desperate tramps, an experience which is grippingly illustrated in this Biograph melodrama.

A poor man steals a loaf of bread to feed his family, not knowing there's a stolen diamond hidden inside.

Success is often coveted instead of honestly earned. Through honest effort the farmer was enjoying the fruits of his labor. A large irrigation well was among his new acquisitions. Therein his designing helpers held him prisoner while they left with his wealth and his daughter. There is an old saying, however, that an evil purpose always defeats its own end by some committing act.

The Rev. William Morris is the director of a small church near a state penitentiary. He is convinced that a criminal is only a good man gone wrong. Dr. Bishop, a friend of the minister, has made a life-long study of this very subject. The doctor has a daughter whom the minister loves and to whom he is engaged.

Joe Grant is the renegade husband of Lengua, a beautiful South African native girl. John Lewis is a South American trader, living with his daughter Grace. Ned Singleton helps Lewis in his work. Grant steals from Lewis' trading post and orders the abused Lengua to aid him in secreting the loot, and she refuses. She tells Lewis of Grant's misdeeds.

When Jimmie Collins, a pickpocket, is arrested and brought before Captain Callahan of the Tenth, he is surprised because he is lodged in a cell. Jimmie claims acquaintanceship with Bill McFarlin, a corrupt political boss, and he sneers at Captain Callahan when he is ordered to be placed behind the cell bars.

The man meets and falls in love with a girl much younger than himself, and decides to cast off the woman with whom he had had a love affair. He goes to his old sweetheart and asks her to return his love letters. She does so on condition that he tell the new girl of their affair. He does not live up to his promise, but tells her that she is the first girl he has ever loved. In the meantime, he has lost his letters, and the new sweetheart, upon finding them, returns them to the owner. From this source she is advised to have nothing more to do with him unless she is convinced in her own mind that he is kneeling to her in spirit at all times.

A necklace belonging to Mrs. Stuyvesant is stolen from Lawyer Smirney's office. It was smuggled in from China years before. Chief Knox is notified and believes Smirney guilty when he finds a diagram in his pocket, and following it, finds a necklace. Ho Fing-Tang, a Chinaman, studying law in the office, is not suspected by Knox, but Spider, a newspaper reporter, believes differently. Ho Fing-Tang is injured and in a delirium keeps repeating "Huns 764." Spider goes to the office and from a book called "Hun's 129 Reports," he extracts the real necklace. The stones Knox found prove to be paste.

Brian Godfrey and Arnold Lambert are clerks in the diamond broker's office, both interested in Mildred St. Pierre, the daughter of an old employee. For a while she is impartial but Arnold is too impetuous in his addresses and she repulses him. Gilbert Howell, a traveling salesman of the firm, puts into the vault a sealed package containing valuable private papers. On the same day is placed in the vault, a number of fine uncut stones in a similar package. When Howard starts on his usual tour, he takes from the vault what he thinks are his papers. That same evening, old St. Pierre, recalling the fact of leaving some very important papers on his desk is worried and decides to make sure by going back to the office alone to place them in the vault.

John Morning, rich, without family, dreams of things that might have been. He discovers a poverty-stricken woman who is fatally injured, takes her to her home in the slum district, where she dies, and John Morning assumes charge of the woman's daughter of fourteen, Ritta. He determines to try his "great experiment," and Ritta is unaware of whom her benefactor is.

Hamad, an Arab half-breed, is in command of the ivory traders. Allan Deane is sent to take charge of the ivory traders' camp, and Hamad is told that he can serve as assistant hereafter. Allan Deane and Naila love each other. She informs Allan that Hamad is a slave trader and sells the native men and women like beasts.

Some valuable pearls are stolen in China and transported to San Francisco. Jane Hampton learns that her father is the smuggler, and that police are on his trail. Under pressure, she takes the pearls to a Chinese man named Woo Fong.

Professor Duane, an ethnologist, and his assistant, Roscoe Harding, plan a journey into the wilds of Hindustan. Harding is in love with Lydia, the daughter of Professor Duane, and they are engaged to be married. Lieutenant Tavish, a British army officer, is attracted to Lydia and plans to take her away from Harding by fair means or foul.

James Wadsworth sets his sights on the lovely society girl Anna Dalton and determines to marry her. To achieve that goal, he follows her everywhere she goes, including on a ship to South America. He comes up with a plan to make her love him--he throws her overboard, follows her over the side and swims with her to a deserted island. His somewhat unorthodox method works and he wins over Anna, but problems arise when Richard Towne, Anna's fiancé who has been searching for her, finds the island and discovers the two.

Archie Sheldon, determining to go to New York City, is given a letter by his mother to Thatcher Thole, Gotham's most unscrupulous financier. She tells her son that Thole is an old friend of the family, and will undoubtedly give him a start in life.

Vesta Wheatley is the daughter of a Virginia physician; John Randolph is a New Yorker who buys a tract of land from her father. Vesta and John fall in love, get married, and move to New York. They are followed, however, by a persistent old flame of Vesta's, Dick Mortimer. He tracks her down to a mountain cabin, where she is alone. A burglar breaks in on the two, and Dick is killed trying to protect Vesta. The burglar blackmails Vesta until she finally becomes desperate and shoots him in her own home.