Valerie St. Cyr, seizes a chance for excitement and money, deserts her infant daughter Joan and her impoverished husband and runs away to Paris with the Count Du Poissy. Years later, without knowing that they are mother and daughter, both Valerie and Joan fall in love with artist Julian St. Saens, who rejects the former but becomes engaged to the latter. Enraged, Valerie convinces the count to kidnap Joan, but after she is captured, Joan stabs the count to death. When Valerie learns that Joan is her daughter, she takes the blame for the murder and goes to the guillotine while Joan, still unaware that Valerie is her mother, makes plans with Julian for their marriage.—Pamela Short

Valerie St. Cyr is the beauty who ran away with Count Du Poissy, leaving her baby daughter and her impoverished husband to shift for themselves. When the little girl, Joan, matures, she becomes engaged to Julian St. Saens, a puritanical young artist who, never suspecting the relation of Valerie to his fiancée, refuses to paint the former's portrait because she does not come up to his moral standards. Piqued at the artist's snub, and equally ignorant of Joan's identity, Valerie contrives to become his model by pretending to be penniless. She falls in love with Julian but when he repulses her, she seeks vengeance for the insult. The Count has taken a fancy to Joan and they plan to abduct the girl. The Count takes her to one of his private haunts but when she realizes her danger, Joan stabs him and escapes. Fatally wounded, the Count summons the police. Meanwhile Valerie has learned that Joan, the girl whom she has just been instrumental in handing over to the Count, is her own daughter. Rushing to the Count's rendezvous she finds him dying and as the gendarmes enter she decides to make final reparation to her daughter by declaring herself guilty of the crime. Convicted by her own statements, Valerie goes to her death with an expression of almost heavenly contentment upon her face, happy in the belief that she has made atonement for her early desertion of the helpless infant.—Moving Picture World synopsis