Robert Rogers is heavily in debt as a result of gambling. He gets word from one of his cronies that there is a way out if he would consult Phony Bill. He does so and gives Phony Bill a note for a sum of money if he will supply him with a sum of counterfeit money. The arrangement is made and carried out but Phony Bill refuses to give up the note. Rogers takes from the vault of the bank in which he is employed some good money substituting the bad. The cashier is accused of the theft and sent to prison for a long term of years, leaving to the mercies of the world a wife and infant daughter. Some twenty years later. Stephen Rogers, son of the original crook, whom his father has left wealthy, employs as a stenographer, Ethel Hartley, the cashier's daughter. Not suspecting who she is, he takes her to his country home to do some special work for him. While she is there he makes advances to her but is repulsed. He finds some of her correspondence and learns for the first time who she really is. She runs away and finds a home with one of Rogers' tenants, but Rogers drives her away from there. Driven to desperation she tries to commit suicide, but is rescued by Chester Thorne, who, on learning part of her story, places her in the care of his mother. While she is there he falls desperately in love with her. Rogers happens to be passing one day and sees the couple. He goes home and decides to tell her lover her history. One day an old tramp is passing and Ethel brings him in and feeds him. On her recommendation Chester gives him a job on the place. When Rogers calls to make his exposure, the tramp, who is the long-forgotten Phony Bill, produces the note and proves that Ethel's father was innocent and that in reality Rogers' father was the guilty one.
—Moving Picture World synopsis