Finding that marriage conflicts with his carefree life, Teddy Brant, a dissolute man-about-town, fakes his own suicide, thus freeing Rose, his self-sacrificing wife, and his baby daughter Helen from life with an irresponsible drunk. Learning of her husband's alleged death, Rose remarries. Years later, Teddy, now a hopeless derelict, wanders the country until, unable to find a place to sleep one night, he strays into the waiting room of a train station. Here he sees a young girl being accosted by an elderly gentleman who entices her home. Teddy thinks nothing of the incident until he finds a purse lying on the seat and learns that the girl is his daughter Helen. Teddy hastens after them and in the ensuing fight, strangles Helen's assailant and then flees. Helen is arrested for the murder, but is acquitted when Teddy staggers into the police station and confesses to the crime, takes his life in his cell.—Pamela Short

Teddy Brant, while in an intoxicated condition, proposes to Rose Hare. Although she rejects him, gossip, started by two girls who saw the wooing, compels her (as she believes) to accept him. Teddy soon finds that married life and fatherhood are too irksome for one of his temperament. Eventually he seeks solace in Claire, an artist. Teddy tells a friend, Victor, who was once a suitor for Rose's hand, to get a divorce for her and then marry her. In a more sober moment, Teddy regrets this, but he finds his home closed to him. Gradually his fly-by-night friends abandon him also. To cut himself off from the world entirely, Teddy arranges a fake suicide. After his supposed death is published, Rose and Victor marry. Teddy continues sliding down the ladder of life, until he becomes a porter in a railroad station. One night he discovers his own daughter has been trapped by white slaves. He rushes to the home of the man and sees his child fighting off the attentions of her "benefactors." Teddy strangles the man and flees. The police arrest the girl. While they are putting her through the third degree, Teddy staggers into the police station. He takes the lieutenant aside and confesses. Helen, his daughter, is released in care of Victor, who, though recognizing Teddy, nods in reply to his unspoken plea for silence. Brant is taken to a cell. A keeper passing sees Teddy huddled on the floor. Father Duffy gets a telephone call a few seconds later. "Come at once to the Forty-seventh Precinct Station House," the lieutenant says.—Moving Picture World synopsis