Returning to the village of Bayport after twenty-two years, retired sea captain Cyrus Whittaker finds the community under the power of political boss Herman Atkins. Cy opposes Atkin's choice for the position of teacher and helps to elect Miss Daws instead, thus earning the enmity of the politician. One day, a young girl named Emily Thomas arrives with a note from Sarah Oliver, a relative of Cy, explaining that the girl is the daughter of his old sweetheart and that her father is in jail and her mother dead.

Melodrama in which the rich arrogant George gives money to poor Frank and Jane, so he may spend a night with Jane. Jane goes along with it because she need the money to save her sick husband.

Zudora, not knowing she's an heiress to a $20 million fortune, lives with her uncle, a mystic and detective, who covets her inheritance. She wants to marry John Storm but her uncle is against it. However, the uncle makes a bargain; if Zudora can solve the next twenty mysteries brought to him, she can marry as she chooses. Episodes 1,2 and 8, plus another unidentified chapter, survive. The rest is believed to be lost.

On her wedding day, Norma Huntley wants to tell Edward Berkley, her husband-to-be, her secret -- that she mothered a child out of wedlock which subsequently died. Her mother forbids her to reveal this. Only moments after the ceremony, it is discovered that the child, now three, is actually alive. Berkley, incensed at this turn of events, agrees to adopt the child and remain married for appearance's sake -- but when he finds the father, he will kill him.

A story is told of a woman who, disinherited after a scandal, later needs expensive surgery. Her father, General Darrington, initially refuses her plea for money, so she sends her daughter, Beryl, to him. The General dies from a falling andiron, Beryl is arrested, and a will favors a lawyer named Lennox. Beryl's brother, Bertie, arrives and provides exculpatory testimony supported by Lennox, who appears with a lightning-imprinted photograph. The siblings eventually discover love between Beryl and Lennox.