When Mary and Fannie Graham, daughters of a good mother but a father with criminal instincts, are left motherless, Mary flees from her unhappy surroundings while Fannie, inheriting her father's disposition, remains and is raised as a thief.
After being unfaithful to "The Stranger", who committed a murder on her account, Cherry Millard, known as "The Siren", leaves to work in a dance hall in the Western town of Nugget.
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.
On the eve of her elopement with Henry Traquair, Margaret Fielding is accidentally discovered in Traquair's apartments by his friends, Captain Richard Haynes and Walter Maxwell.
Little Betty has a luxurious home, an army of servants and the costliest of toys. But she hasn't what a child wants most of all, other children to play with.