Mr. Reeder, a somewhat eccentric old gentleman employed by the Director of Public Prosecutions, gets it into his head to break up a counterfeiting ring.
Addicted youth Roy Wilson steals his architect father's bid for a railway contract to pay gambling debts to Graham Madison, but the theft leads to his father's death and an attempt to frame Roy's sister Jessie's sweetheart, Carew. After Carew is wrongly accused, a confession from Roy and the exposure of Madison and Carew's plotting lead to Madison's arrest, Carew's vindication, and hope for the future.
Crooked banker Peter V. Wilkinson intentionally drives his own company into bankruptcy and puts the bank's deposits into a secret account he has set up using his daughter Leslie's name. A series of events occurs in which Leslie finds out what her father has done and sets out to get him to return all the money he has stolen.
Minister John Hodder becomes rector of a prestigious church in the Midwestern city of Bremerton but finds dissension and malfeasance among his congregation. When he calls it out both tragedy and a way forward are revealed.
In a jealous rage dancer Anna Janssen shoots her common-law husband Alastair De Vries in a cafe when she discovers him with a chorus girl. Fleeing to Tahiti she is tracked by detective Thomas McCarthy who arrests her. On their return journey they are marooned on a deserted island. After 2 years together, they realize their love and take marriage vows, but when a ship is sighted, she insists, against his wishes, that she return to face trial.
A press agent helps a honky tonk spot draw a new elite patronage but a troublemaker arrives on the scene as well and disrupts the romance between the male and female stars.
An old knight weds his dead friend's daughter but she gives herself to an Italian Don to bear an heir.
Seduced and abandoned by the caddish Louis La Farge shepherdess Marie Beaupre is cast out of the village and forced to survive in the mountains alone. Driven mad she becomes known as “the witch woman” until hypnotist Dr. Cochefort and his friend Delaunay encounter her while on a hunting trip, take her to Paris, and effectuate a cure at which time she becomes heir to Delaunay's fortune. All seems clear sailing until Marie is introduced to Louis's twin brother Maurice and mistaking him for Louis sets forth on a plan for revenge.
Loey Tsing, the first love of Chan Wang, is sold into slavery by her father. Although Chan marries another, he still loves Loey; only the birth of a son relieves his unhappiness. He adores little Chan Toy even though he finds nothing to like about his wife.
Sato (Sessue Hayakawa) faithfully works for importer James Thornton (James Neill). When the old man dies, he leaves his daughter Mildred (Vivian Martin) in Sato's care. Sato loves the girl, but as he is Japanese he cannot hope to ever marry her (at least not in the racially prejudiced era of the early 1900s). Besides, Mildred loves Harry Maxwell (Tom Forman), who was raised alongside her.
A man loves a dancer who becomes a producer's mistress.
The redemption journey of Moll O'Hara, a woman struggling with alcoholism and a challenging past. Moll, rescued from a life of drinking and fighting by Ruth Thompson, a settlement worker, finds love with Bill Hubbell, a saloon-keeper, and embraces a new life free from alcohol. However, her past and a rival, Douglas Ames, threaten her happiness.
Millionaire Kent Whitney (the explorer) fakes his death and returns to find his fiancée, Myra Hastings, being pursued by other men, especially rejected suitor Bob Harkness. To see if his wife truly loves him or just his money, the "dead" husband takes a job as a butler in his own home. He observes Myra's interactions and deals with the societal pressure on rich American women to marry European aristocrats for titles, a theme often called "husband-hunting".
Clay Whipple is convicted of murdering the governor following an incident involving a cat's eye pin. Whipple is sentenced to death, but a mentalist named Psychic Jack believes he is innocent since Whipple had been hypnotized at the time of the murder. The psychic persuades the judge to grant the condemned man a retrial, and he sets out to uncover the identity of the real killer, during which time he manages to prevent a second murder from occurring.
A Lord objects to his son's love for a bastard until a society doctor is revealed as her father.
Jacqueline Laurentine Boggs, the daughter of an American hog farmer, is schooled in France and comes to stay with an English family. There she brings a dose of reality to her snobby hosts.
Most mothers are more or less wrong about their children. Mrs. Reed loved her youngest son, Edward, who was a clever rascal, so blindly that her eldest son, Jim, a generous but somewhat stupid boy, did not get his due dose of maternal affection. Jim was always unlucky, while Edward was never short of good clothes and plenty of money to make his pockets ring.
Barbara Winslow helps her rebel brother, Rupert, escape from the king's forces by disguising herself as him. Captain Prothero captures her, but he has fallen for Barbara's charms so he lets her go. As a result they are both arrested and imprisoned.
Felix, the King of Wallonia, has to marry Louise, Princess of the neighboring State of Trebizond. The old Prince, her father, craves the elixir of youth, and gets drunk so often that Trebizond is in bad shape. Thus, it is up to Felix to be King of both States. But Louise has a love affair with Stepan, the heir presumptive to his throne, and Felix flees to America in disguise. By a strange twist of circumstance he takes a job as butler in the home of J.P. Morton, multi-millionaire. There he meets Marcia, Morton's daughter, and the jig is up. He loves her.
A gangster running a protection racket gets information that he's about to be prosecuted on income-tax-evasion charges. He hires a man with a photographic memory to memorize his books, then destroys them all so the police won't have any evidence to link him to the racket.