Muriel Flemming secretly marries Graydon Burton before he heads West to make his fortune. Later, when he is about to board a train to return to his wife, he is accused of a murder that was actually committed by crooked attorney Herman Slade.
John Howland travels to the frozen North to build a branch of the Hudson Bay Railroad. There he meets and falls in love with Meleese Thoreau who warns him that her three bloodthirsty brothers, Max, Pierre and François, have sworn vengeance against a man named John Howland, the son of a man who killed their mother, and that torture and death await him along the route to his station.
Ralph Brooks, although engaged to Julia Dean, meets and becomes infatuated with Rita Reynolds. She gains his sympathy by telling untrue stories of her husband's brutality.
A young woman falls for a flirtatious count only to find that he has no intention of marrying her. To her distress, the count still pursues her even after she has married another.
Unrequited love rules the day as both wealthy Judith Sylvester and her invalid aunt pine for men who got away, but happiness lays ahead for one while hopeful dreams sustain the other.
Prince Sami comes from Nigeria and is an uncivilized "nature boy." He is sent to the highly civilized court of Duchess Maria of Arragon, where he initially causes chaos.
In order to help her poverty-stricken family, Jonnie Consadine, a strong-willed young woman from the Blue Ridge Mountains, comes to the city and takes a job in a mill, while her uncle, Pros Passmore, continues his endless search for a lost silver mine.
During World War I, Jane Whiting, a bright young lawyer who is engaged to Senator Wheeler, is assigned by the district attorney to expose a gang of spies who are collecting money for the German government through the operation of a fraudulent charity organization.