After his wife/model dies of starvation with her portrait unfinished, an impoverished artist meets another woman with a striking resemblance to her.

An impoverished artist uses his own wife as a model, but before he can complete the painting, she dies of malnutrition. The portrait remains unfinished until he comes across another woman who bears a striking resemblance to his dead wife. He asks her to help him finish the picture and she falls in love, but is jealous of the love he still feels for her. After she leaves him, she learns that he has gone blind.—[email protected]

Ruth Graham, a young seamstress, is in poor health but works to support her father and herself. Howard Marston, a wastrel, has decided to commit suicide. Ruth finds him in the park just as he is about to shoot himself. She convinces him not to commit the act, then takes her to her home. The two eventually marry. Ruth's father dies, and her health becomes worse. Howard cannot make enough money to send her to a warmer climate. Ruth dies from exhaustion sitting for a portrait Howard is trying to complete. Despondent, Howard goes to Paris to forget his loss. There he meets Jeanne, a cabaret entertainer, who is Ruth's double. He asks her to sit for his unfinished portrait of Ruth, and she accepts. Jeanne tries to be like Ruth, even though she is her polar opposite. But Howard keeps his distance. Count Pascal, Jeanne's former suitor, persuades her to return to her old life, and she leaves Howard. Howard pursues her, and finds her in Pascal's room. A fight ensues, and Howard's eyes are seriously injured. Jeanne nurses him and they learn to love each other. Now blind, Howard is able to see the beauty in Jeanne and the two find happiness.—scsu1975

Howard Marston is saved from suicide by Ruth Graham, and under his good influence he takes a new hold upon life and wins a fortune through an improvement in engraving, but money cannot defeat death, and Ruth dies with Howard's portrait of her still unfinished. Howard goes to Paris and in the gay underworld he finds Ruth's physical double in Jeanne Le Fleur. At his solicitation she poses for the completion of the portrait, and Howard does not realize that in completing his wife's picture he is giving something of her soul to the model. In anger at his blindness, she slashes the completed painting and rejoins her old companions. There Howard finds her and light and darkness come to him.—Moving Picture World synopsis