Two English crooks, Lionel Verker and his sister, Marie, come to America, where at a seaside resort Lionel makes a heroic rescue by saving Bob Kent, the son of a millionaire, from drowning. He is introduced to the Kent family. Learning that there is a position of lady's maid open in the house, he wires his sister to come at once. With the aid of false references she obtains the position. At a lawn fete Muriel, the daughter of the millionaire, wears a lot of jewelry. Lionel notices this and after a dance with him she misses one of her diamonds.

Dorothy Madison, a secret service operative, is sent into the West Virginia mountains to locate a still, after male operatives failed. She carries a sketching outfit and a carrier pigeon into the moonshine country, and hides the pigeon in the woods near a mountain cabin, where she hopes to make headquarters. She walks along the road until she sees Dave Parks coming, falls, feigns a sprained ankle, and is taken home by Dave, who is a young, good-looking moonshiner. Dave's mother is a sour-faced, pipe-smoking, suspicious old mountain woman, and only tolerates Dorothy. Nell Oatsey, typical mountain girl of bold beauty, hears of Dorothy's plight and goes to see her. She carries her rifle.

Erma Desmond leaves her uncle and aunt to visit a friend, Phyllis, in the city. There, she finds work as the companion to the highly temperamental Mrs. Stanley. Mrs. Stanley has terrorized her husband to such an extent that he has gone away for a few months, purportedly to take their daughter to school, but mainly to get some peace. The servants, however, are still victims of her terrible fits until the day she decides to head for Reno to get a divorce.

After a lover's quarrel, writer Grace Hunt goes vacationing to a seaside resort where she decides to swap identities with a student.

Arnold Truesdell, a rich invalid, requests his secretary, Robert Sheridan, to summon his lawyer. Truesdell is the foster father of Marion Robertson, the child of his bosom friend who died some time ago. His happiness with the little girl was soon dissipated, for she was kidnapped by a gypsy whose enmity he had aroused.

After a love triangle results death, St. Elmo falls from grace and is eventually redeemed in this now lost silent film based on the best selling novel by Augusta Jane Wilson.