The Golden Gift

New York confidence man "Silk" Wilkins ingratiates himself with millionaire Lawrence Gray, knowing Gray’s wife and daughter Zelda were lost in a flood eighteen years earlier. After promising to find Gray's daughter, Silk returns to his boardinghouse, where he finds Alice Sheldon, broke and about to commit suicide. Silk convinces Alice to pose as Zelda Gray and then notifies Lawrence via a note placed in an almond shell that he has found the lost daughter. Lawrence treats Alice so kindly that when Silk demands payment from her on Christmas morning, she refuses. Lawrence, who has overheard the conversation, enters and laughingly reveals that he had known of the frame-up all along. Grateful to Silk for finding him a wife, Lawrence writes the confidence man a large check.

Bill Clayton is known as Broadway Bill because he is the most prominent Bill in the night life of the white way. Muriel loves Bill, but loathes his mode of life, and for her sake he goes to Underwood's lumber camp to work the alcohol out of his system. Hardigan. the foreman, thinks he is sent to spy upon his actions and makes several efforts to get rid of him, but in the end Bill thrashes the foreman, takes his place and wins the girl, though not before a curious chain of cross, purposes.

Letty Shell, a clerk in a London brokerage office, is discouraged by her lack of fine clothes and social position. She becomes infatuated with Nevill Letchmere, a debonair idler from a good family, and believes that he wants to marry her, but after her boss, Bernard Mandeville, who has risen to power and wealth, and who wants to marry Letty, warns Letchmere to keep away from her, Letchmere confesses that he is married. Disappointed, Letty accepts Mandeville's proposal, but when she sees Mandeville's boorishness in a restaurant, she returns to Letchmere. Just as she is about to become his mistress, Letchmere receives word that his married sister has eloped with a lover. When he curses his sister for acting like a "shop girl," Letty realizes that he views her and her class without respect. She leaves and accepts the love of her faithful friend Richard Perry, a poor photographer, whose rich uncle is going to help him in business

A gypsy woman, Hagar, abandons her baby, Eve, on the doorstep of a Quaker family, the Fothergills, hoping for a better life for her child, who is then raised as their daughter.

Larry Winthrop, the pampered son of an aristocratic Boston family, is loved by his wife, Eleanor, but she wants him to prove himself to her as a man.

Mistakenly believing that she has inherited a large estate from her father, Olivia Sherwood spends money wantonly. In reality, her funds are supplied by unscrupulous attorney Arnold West, whose ulterior motive is to possess her. When she falls in love with wealthy Richard Burbank, West becomes enraged. At a party, West confronts Olivia with the truth and threatens to expose her unless she marries him. Olivia frantically attempts to escape his advances and as West pursues her, he falls down the stairs and breaks his neck. Burbank overhears the entire confrontation and forgives Olivia, and they marry.

Alias "the Dancer," fashionable society crook Jimmy Burke is hot on the trail of the Brent diamonds. Upon learning that Molly Brent and her diamonds are the stars of an amateur play, Jimmy obtains the leading man's part and devises a plan to steal the jewels. Molly falls in love with her leading man, who plans to switch the gems with fakes during the performance. After the play, the police question the couple and Molly declares that the robbery was part of the drama. When she discovers Jimmy's deed, she begins to cry and "the Dancer," realizing that he is in love with his victim, renounces his profession.

When Rachel Stetherill's daughter marries a man of whom she disapproves, Rachel disowns her. Five years later her daughter, now widowed, is killed. Her young son comes under the influence of a professional safecracker and is soon on his way to becoming a hardened criminal. Twenty yeas later the Stetherill family lawyer learns that the infamous thief known as Ladyfingers bears a striking resemblance to Rachel's husband--and has fallen in love with Enid, Mrs. Stetherill's young ward. Complications ensue.

The story of a happily married woman, Amy, who is greeted with temptation of riches beyond belief after her husband, Andrew, accepts a position at a Colorado Steel Mill.

John Maddox, Sr., who directs the Equity Trust Company with James Buckley, sends Henry Jenkins to steal a note of security from Buckley's safe, and in the struggle that ensues between Buckley and the burglar, the former is killed. Maddox claims that Buckley, failing in his scheme to steal from the company, committed suicide, and John Maddox, Jr., knowing that Buckley's daughter Beatrice is now penniless, breaks his engagement with her. Forced to earn her own living, Beatrice opens a candy factory, and with the help of her loyal friend, Robert Howard, the business becomes so successful that it presents a threat to Maddox's candy company. Maddox sends Jenkins to instigate a strike at Beatrice's factory, but when he is mortally wounded in a fight, he confesses everything. With her father's honor restored and her business flourishing, Beatrice happily agrees to marry Robert.

Anson Campbell returns from the seminary to a small village on the New England coast. When the puritanical villagers persecute Bess Morgan, a "fallen" woman, he sticks up for her, telling them that their form of "Christianity" isn't Christian at all. This has no effect on the bigoted villagers and they turn their anger on him. Complications ensue.

The story of a girl who rebelled against the "double standard" of morals, and demanded that women should have as much right to expect virtue in the man they are going to marry as a man expects of a woman.

Canadian schoolteacher Julie Leneau becomes the bride of Geoffrey Arnold but is soon confronted by Claire who convinces her that she is Arnold's lawful wife. Fleeing into a blizzard Julie nearly perishes but is found by government official Hubert Randolph. They become snowbound and she later accepts his proposal to give her baby an honorable name. Moving to Jamaica Hubert rises in government and the couple are happy. However, when Geoffrey visits Julie realizes she still loves him and learning he has not been unfaithful Randolph surrenders his wife and her child to Geoffrey.

After his divorce Robert Collingwood loses his fortune in Wall Street and becomes mentally unstable. He then attempts to harm his daughter, Gail, but dies in a fall. Fifteen years later, Gail, now a reporter, becomes involved with a man named Thorne, who is also known as Edward North. Thorne is later revealed to be the man who had an affair with Collingwood's wife.

At her mother’s behest Kate Leigh marries wealthy Basil Kildare, owner of a Southern plantation called Storm. When Basil’s servant and mistress Mahaly protests bitterly he takes their shared son away from her. Kate discovers her new husband is a coarse and brutal alcoholic and turns for friendship to Dr. Jacques Benoix and his mother. When Basil becomes aware of their relationship, he finds the doctor and they have a brutal fight. Later Basil is found dead and Jacques is sentenced to life in prison. On her deathbed, Mahaly confesses that she killed Basil, leaving Kate and Jacques to begin a new life together.

Duplicity and double crosses run thick and fast when Ben Farraday forces Nan Kennedy to steal documents from Ben’s enemy John Lawson in exchange for his silence about her escapee brother’s whereabouts. Betrayed by all around her Nan resorts to deception to regain control of her life.