L. Rogers Lytton

Zaza is an actress and the favorite at an open-air theater in a small French town. When diplomat Bernard Dufresne comes to the village, he stays away for fear he will fall for her. But during one performance, while Zaza is singing on a swing, her rival cuts the rope and she falls. Zaza is badly injured and she makes Dufresne's acquaintance. A romance quickly springs up and he installs her in a villa. Their happiness is marred, however, when his wife appears.

Joan, a refined young Salvation Army volunteer, fall in love with a gangster.

When Alice Winton's brother embezzles funds belonging to his employer, Benjamin Graves, a promoter of worthless mining stock, she saves him from arrest by signing over to Graves a hefty promissory note. Later Graves deliberately wrecks the mining company in which Alice's invalid father has invested his money, and the shock from the resulting bankruptcy, kills him. Alice marries Robert Burton, a noted criminologist who believes in the theory, "once a thief, always a thief," and the couple takes up temporary residence with District Attorney Jeffrey Miller. In Miller's safe are incriminating documents concerning Graves's illegal activities, and Graves, knowing of their existence, blackmails Alice into stealing them by showing her some compromising love letters to which he has forged her name.

A woman sacrifices everything for her husband's career.

A convivial evening at Hoag's Tavern is interrupted by a young companion, William Fentise, declaring to the assembled company that he is very much in love with Sylvia, known as "Cherry," the beautiful daughter of Mr. Gray, a wealthy resident of their town. He conspires with some of the bolder spirits of the company to hold up the stage in which Mr. Gray and his daughter are homeward bound to the King George Inn, he will then dash up, drive the "robbers" away single handed and claim the fair lady.

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.

Anne Blair is a model at a modiste's shop who accepts the attention of wealthy Thomas Brockton so she can help support her invalid mother. One day Brockton tries to force himself on her and she stabs him. Later that day Anne finds out that her mother has died, and delirious from the shock, she wanders out into the snow where she is found, unconscious, by artist Richard Steel.

Brought into contact with each other, Runa and Shep, a dog, become great chums. Their companionship is looked upon with evident interest and amusement by Runa's parents, who do not seem to be very greatly concerned for their daughter's childish affairs, leaving that entirely to her nurse.

Having misused funds held in his trust by investing them with his friend, Henry Lowe, Robert Reardon appeals to his future son-in-law, James Calvin, a candidate for the position of district attorney, for help. When Calvin threatens to indict Lowe for fraud if he is elected, Reardon's anger becomes so great that the engagement between Calvin and Reardon's daughter Helen is broken, resulting in Reardon's suicide. After Lowe comes into possession of a check forged by Helen's brother Jack, he uses the document to force a marriage with Helen. Treated brutally by her husband, Helen seeks Calvin's aid, but Lowe frames Calvin, now the district attorney, in a compromising situation with his ex-fiancée. Calvin is about to resign when Helen traps her husband with some marked money, causing his suicide through disgrace. Thus freed, Helen and Calvin find happiness together.

A silent crime film in which the wealthy landowner Lorenzo, who has been taunting poor Miguel and his family for years, eventually gets his comeuppance.

Enemy agents under the leadership of "Emanon" conspire with pacifists to keep the American defense appropriations down at a time when forces of the enemy are preparing to invade. The invasion comes, and New York, Washington, and other American cities are devastated.

In the summer of 1914, Alsatian maiden Louise de Villars is attacked by two German soldiers. Hugh Brown, a visiting American, comes to her rescue and they fall in love. When war is declared, Hugh enlists in the French flying corps and shoots down thirty enemy planes. He is captured, but escapes with other prisoners while being transferred to another camp, and arrives at Louise's house to find camp commander, Baron Von Steinbach. To save Hugh from being executed, Louise offers herself to the lecherous Baron. Louise then kills him and escapes with Hugh to an American trench, where they are married by a chaplain on the final day of the war. Afterward, they leave Europe for Hoboken, New Jersey.

Malvini, retires to a monastery after his wife elopes with another man. After 20 years, Malvini returns to find his daughter, Valeria, accused of murder. Her lover, Mario, had actually shot the man in self-defense, but the dying victim blamed Valeria. Mario, initially driven insane by the event, recovers and explains what happened. The priest intervenes with the King, Valeria is freed, and Mario is pardoned. The film ends with the priest marrying Valeria and Mario.

An expose of the methods used by a police-department to extract a confession from a suspect, regardless of innocence or guilt, and the effect and consequences on a family when an innocent member breaks under the interrogation methods and confesses to a crime he did not commit.

Eric Temple is a composer whose rival, both in romance and work, is Sir Geoffrey Pomfret , a nobleman with few scruples. The woman they both love is Margaret, the daughter of Lord Neville. To get rid of his competition, Pomfret tells Lord Neville that his wife, Lady Neville, is in love with Eric. Then, when Eric is attacked by thugs and lays unconscious in a hospital, he steals his opera too.

Mr. Williams, a stern father and man of wealth, disinherits his son Hugh, for marrying Rose, a seamstress. Twenty years later, although Sose is practically supporting her sick husband, their little store is taken from them and they are obliged to move, with Martha, their daughter, to the tenement district.

Mario Campanini, a theological student, makes the serious mistake of neglecting his young and pleasure-loving wife, Rita. Her dissatisfaction grows, until she meets the Count di Turino. The Count is very attentive and almost before she knows it Rita is infatuated with him. One night she elopes, leaving a simple note for Mario, who is stunned. At the count's home Rita is happy, for the Count is very good to her, but one day her curiosity leads her to try one of several locked doors in the castle-like home, and there she finds the Count is keeping in seclusion an insane wife. Now she knows the reason for the Count's many absences from home, during which he was supposed to be engaged in "diplomatic work." Horrified at what she has learned, Rita forlornly returns to her husband, but he sternly orders her to go back to her titled lover and stay there; she has become one of the Unforgiven. At this point Mario awakes from his terrible nightmare just as his wife smilingly enters the room.

Virginia Jameson, a girl of lovely disposition, is wooed by a man much older than herself whom she very much dislikes, but who stands very high in the favor of her parents. She might have married another man had not fate decreed otherwise. She meets and accidentally escapes the man she could have loved and would have married; she stooped to tie her shoe-strings, diverting her attention from him. Had their eyes met, both their lives would have been different. Leroy Farley, the man favored by her parents, prevails and she marries him. Her life is unhappy, notwithstanding his great riches and social prominence.

A leader in the Russian nihilist movement has an American pretend to be her husband in order to cross the Russian border.

Henri Durand of the French nobility is insanely jealous of his beautiful American wife Marion's innocent conversations with her many male admirers. Durand provokes her suicide when, egged on by a rejected suitor of Marion's, he accuses her of having illicit relations with her visiting childhood friend, Tom Franklin. Twelve years later, when Tom returns after a long expedition, the vengeful Durand coaches his daughter Beatrice, who resembles Marion, to court Tom.