A young woman spurns her too conventional fiancé and flees to an artists' colony.

Jimmy Gilley is engaged to Fanny Blaine. Jimmy would like to live in a more luxurious style, so he and Fanny urge her sister Virginia to marry the wealthy Robert Stafford despite her lack of love for him. She does so and the couple is happy for a time. But Robert begins drinking and eventually mistreats Virginia until she is forced to leave him.

Love complicates the hunt for gold in 1890's Alaska.

Myra Coningsby, a newlywed who is determined not to be a submissive wife but ultimately learns to find a balance in her marriage after a dramatic incident involving a faked drowning.