Serama, the consort of Lucifer, is driven from Paradise by the Archangel Michael, who commands Conscience to enter human souls to judge and punish them. In the main story, society girl Ruth Somers, a reincarnation of Serama, prepares to marry Cecil Brooke, the wealthiest man of her set. Her guardian, Dr. Norton, an incarnation of Lucifer, constantly accompanies her. Ruth is summoned to the Court of Conscience, where the witnesses, Lust, Avarice, Hate, Revenge and Vanity, testify about Ruth's history of seducing and abandoning men. This behavior resulted in the suicide of Madge, the lover of Ned Langley, whom Ruth enthralled and promised to marry, and also the deaths of two rivals for her love. Ruth is ordered back to earth to learn her sentence. When Ned interrupts the wedding, Ruth scorns him and he shoots himself. After Brooke leaves her, the Court dooms Ruth to live with the torment of remembrance. Ruth sends Norton away, and then kneels and repents.
When a train crash kills Horace Barney, the heir to a fortune that his doctors and guardians were planning to extort the unscrupulous trio quickly substitute his double Jack Trevor who by chance was on the same locomotive but knocked unconscious. Once awakened, Jack realizes the duplicity but plays along to try and foil the plot and save the estate for Barney’s cousin Helen who is the true heir and with whom he has fallen in love.
Former Viennese orchestra leader Anton von Barwig has been searching for his daughter, taken by his ex-wife, for many years. The search has reduced him to penury since a crooked detective swindled him. One day he meets a young society girl, Helene Stanton, seeking music lessons for her fiancé, Beverly Cruger, and recognizes her as his child. Barwig finally confronts her foster father, who had run away with his wife in Vienna, who pleads with him to stay silent for his daughter’s future. He acquiesces but Helene discovers the relationship and brushes social considerations aside to be reunited with him.
When Bob Stratton returns from war in France, he soon discovers his ranch in the hands of a pretty girl, Mary Thorne, who explains that upon her father's death she became the sole owner. Thorne had been the executor of Stratton's will, and thinking that Bob had been killed, he had appropriated the place for himself.
Wealthy New York contractor Wilton Demarest falls victim to the wiles of beautiful adventuress Mazora. Soon, he becomes addicted to drugs, neglects his wife and child, and his business is on the verge of ruin. By chance he meets his double, western mining engineer Martin Stanley. Demarest, half mad due to his drug addiction, conceives the fantastic idea of having Stanley take his place in the world enabling him to indulge in his degraded desires. Stanely, penniless and alone in the world accepts the proposition despite his reservations. Demarest drops into oblivion and Stanley picks up the scattered threads of his life, both in business and at home. The "at home" part is what causes complications.
Faced with the tragic responsibility of choosing between the happiness of her 16-year-old daughter Pamela or saving the life of an innocent man, Marie Baudin's first impulse is to sacrifice all for her own. But she has second thoughts that bring complications to all.
A gang of Tripolitan pirates swooped down and kidnapped 13 wealthy brides, whom they held for ransom.
A woman writes about her sister's tragedy, vowing to help others in similar situations: Because Bettina longs to leave her country home, her loving mother sends her and her serious-minded elder sister to London, accepting their aunt's invitation to visit and allow Bettina to be introduced to society. The girls' dressmaker steals the aunt's photograph and sends it to a woman who, disguised as their aunt, leads the girls to a brothel. After the elder sister escapes, aided by her concerned male companion, she races in a cab to her aunt's home, but is frustrated in her attempt to rescue Bettina by her aunt's infirm state, the inefficiency of the police, and her own inability to remember the location of the house. She finds her cab driver, but he is drunk and soon dies in an accident. After falling ill, the sister, convinced by a dream that Bettina has died, resolves to devote her life to saving other women.
After being disinherited by their wealthy father for their wild and irresponsible ways, two brothers embark on vastly different paths. One turns to crime and the other follows the straight and narrow falling in love along the way. When their paths cross again both find their lives in danger and only one will emerge safely.
A two part comedy starring Hank Mann and Carmen Phillips, based on the 1909 play A Fool There Was by Porter Emerson Browne.
Gerry Sands dreams of being an editor but is forced by his employer, locksmith Nick Barket, to crack safes. During a robbery he experiences an epiphany and stops. His sweetheart Polly Ann Kerry is thrilled and gets him work at the hotel where she works, but Red Devlin, the brains behind the burglaries, frames Gerry for theft. In hopes that Gerry will resume the thefts Devlin bails him out, but Gerry leaves town for work on a Western newspaper. Afterwards Polly exposes the crooks, she falls ill. Risking arrest Gerry returns and goes to the police station seeking help locating her. The police captain gives him twenty-four hours’ probation. Upon finding Polly the police captain vouches for Gerry's integrity, and they marry.
John Weston leaves his wife and kids to marry adventuress Doris Clark and loses his mind when he realizes his mistake. A lost film.
Hoping to reconcile her divorced parents, Norris Gradley remains with her father, Giles, after he marries another woman. The new Mrs. Gradley snubs and mistreats Norris, who earns money by disguising herself as a boy and playing the violin at dances. Claude Wolcott, employed by Giles to drill oil wells, falls in love with Norris.
Defying her obdurate Colonel father Betty Lewis elopes with Bob Hale. When Bob is killed in an automobile accident, the colonel discovers Betty is pregnant and after the birth cruelly tells Betty that the baby died while placing the child in an orphanage. When Betty later marries Ken Tyler she stays silent about her previous marriage, at the colonel's request. One day while visiting an orphanage with her sister, Barbara, who hopes to adopt, she finds her own daughter. Taking her home she admits to Ken the child's true parentage. Angered at first, he is persuaded by his own mother and accepts the child.
Alice Lindsay arrives in New York from a small town and becomes part of Greenwich Village Bohemian life. Alice resists the advances of Gwenne Stevens, an advocate of free love, and marries civil engineer Samson Rathbone
Don Sebastian, Portuguese Premier, sets a price on the head of royalist Ricardo Madons. Madons is in love with actress Lola Montez, whom Sebastian also adores. Madons abducts Lola and compels her to wed him, but then does not hold her to the compact. Lola, who is really in love with him, repents having sent for assistance when she was taken. When Sebastian's soldiers arrive, Lola is nearly slain when she stops a bullet meant for Madons. She escapes with Madons. The couple find happiness across the border.
Tex Robert rescues beautiful Ramona Wadley from the gang-leader of cattle rustlers. Later, he saves Ramona's sister from a stampede, and is then awarded a job on the Wadley ranch. The obligatory showdown features Pete and the gang.
Veteran action hero William Russell starred opposite his offscreen wife Helen Ferguson in this typical Fox oater about a miner who finds himself up against a master swindler (George Webb).
In this western, William Farnum plays yet another Zane Grey character. Duane Steele (Farnum) is a Texas Ranger who is determined to get the outlaws out of his part of the Lone Star state for good.
Mix is Grant Malvern, a rancher who befriends scientist Quentin Durant (Tom S. Guise) after rescuing him from a trio of Chinese crooks. The crooks want to find Durant's Arizona gold mine, and the map to the location is contained in a pair of rings. After the crooks track down Durant and kill him, one of the rings winds up with Durant's daughter, Helen (Adams), and the other falls into Malvern's hands.