Lizette loves Jean but a 10,000 franc dowry insisted upon by Jean's father is keeping them apart. Paul, Lizette's "black sheep" brother, begs that she gives him her saved money so he can increase it for her - at the gaming table!! He does win but there are a few who are determined he shall not reach home with his money.
As James Abbott, Frank Arthur and Martin Wynne, college chums, are bidding farewell to one another at the commencement ball, James discovers that May Scott, whom he loves, favors Frank.
Broken by grief after his mother's death, Olaf becomes a wanderer. He is treated cruelly until he is given a meal by a woman at the homestead where she lives with her husband and baby.
Tom Chatterton is called a coward because he will not enlist in the Home Guard during the Civil War -- his mother is dying and he does not wish to leave while she is still alive.