Henry Fortune
A powerful financial magnate is plotted against by his greedy son.
Grant Kimberly
The head of the Kimberly household rules it with an iron fist. Unfortunately the head of the Kimberly household isn't Grant (J.H. Gilmore), the father and wealthy Wall Street magnate -- it's his spoiled, headstrong daughter Catherine (Virginia Pearson). She is so willful that she has earned the name "Impossible Catherine," and her whole focus in life is to prove women's superiority over the masculine gender.
Harold Hazelwood
Stella Derrick and Dick Hazelwood love each other, but their families want them to make better financial matches.
Neville Cardross
Sheila Cardross Malcourt shares only a loveless marriage with Louis Malcourt, but is unwilling to divorce him even to marry the man she really loves, for fear of hurting her foster parents. Instead, she stifles her feelings for Garry Hamil and strives to maintain her marriage. But when tragedy ensues, she finds herself faced with a new dilemma.
Dr. Webb
When her surgeon father loses his fortune, Norma Webb (Castle) turns her family home into a boarding house.
U.S. Consul Seaton
Anna Mirrel, a young Jewish girl in Czarist Russia, is forced to degrade herself in order to visit her father, whom she believes to be ill. She obtains a yellow passport, signifying that she is a prostitute.
Thomas Sterling
During a party held in honor of his daughter Marion, Thomas Sterling announces that he will turn over his shipbuilding plant to the United States government for the duration of World War I. Sterling wants Marion to marry his partner, Hugo Smith, but she prefers Gordon Brett, who proposes to her after the party. Marion's father catches the two in an embrace and orders Gordon out of the house. Later that night, Sterling is found murdered. Gordon is the principal suspect, but Marion refuses to believe he is guilty and hides him in the house. Later she discovers Smith sending a message to the Germans on a wireless hidden in the attic.
Mr. Mutrie
Trying to win the Three C's railroad line for his home town of Topaz, Colorado, Nicholas "Nick" Tarvin journeys to India to secure the famed jewel known as the Naulahka, which he plans to present to Mrs. Mutrie, the railroad president's wife.
Winthrop Waldon
A young heiress of an American gun factory is threatened by a masked man after her father was murdered. This criminal might be a member of her family or a German agent, who wants to get information about the factory's products, perhaps his mystery has a combined solution - we will probably never know...
Mike
Mary's supposed father, Syd, trains her to believe theft is justifiable. Caught robbing a man's house, Mary escapes and Syd is jailed. Mary begins working as a locksmith. When she meets the man again, will he believe she's changed?
Capt. Banforth
Convicted in a revolutionary conspiracy, a man rashly states that he wishes never again to hear the name of the United States of America. The judge grants him his wish, sentencing him to life aboard a ship always at sea, aboard with sailors under orders never to let him hear of his homeland in any way. The punishment nearly destroys him, while changing him thoroughly.
Butler
The affluent Carnabys have now dwindled in fortune and family, leaving just Lucy and her brother, Gordon in financial straits. Situations escalate as they struggle to pay their bills and deal with Gordon's gambling debts.
The lead Florence La Badie plays dual roles. Clever editing is used for the scene where her two characters meet. La Badie, however, does appear twice within a scene via superimposition, but that's in a flashback-within-a-mirror scene. There are a couple such scenes where La Badie's reflection in the mirror reflects her reflective melancholy mood.
Dr. Kirk
The Earl of Kent
Silent adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear
(uncredited)
A small town marshal’s secret past as an outlaw comes back to haunt him when an old associate shows up and threatens to expose his former dark deeds.