- David Spencer falls in love with actress Babbie Norris, but his wealthy, propriety-conscious father John Spencer makes him marry aristocratic Janice Lane. After five years with Janice, David is so miserable that he goes to the river to drown himself. When he sees a corpse floating in the water, however, he decides instead to change clothes with it and leave his own identification cards on the dead man. Then, starting life over, David gets work as a laborer. He meets Babbie again, and soon moves to the Northwest with her. Meanwhile, after the dead man has been identified as David, Janice marries Dr. Stone, whom she has loved for several years.—Pamela Short
- Young spendthrift David Spencer returns from France because of his father's ill-health. This has awakened a sense of duty within him, and it is inferred that he will take up his father's work and marry the ward, Janice Lane, who is the antithesis of everything he has been. Dr. Stone, the family physician, loves Janice, but she is almost unaware of it, her whole love being centered on David. "Babbie" Norris, a fun-loving creature among his friends on his homeward journey, is in love with David and by this deep love, awakens a response. Shortly after David's return home, his engagement to Janice is announced and that night, Babbie, broken-hearted, comes to his apartment; and seeing a life-sized portrait of herself in his room, cuts the painting from the frame and draping herself similar to the picture, steps into the frame. He returns and while gazing at the supposed picture, she steps out. He weakens for a moment and then tells her that she must give him up forever. Babbie's hold upon David grows so strong that he determines to break with Janice. He gives a costume party in his apartment to celebrate the termination of his engagement. During the party, one of his guests phones to David's father, who rushes to the apartment. During a fight with one of his guests, David receives a wound on his shoulder from a curved scimitar. At this time Mr. Spencer arrives, the shock proves fatal and he dies. As stipulated in Mr. Spencer's will, David marries Janice and renounces his old life, but after a short while domestic life becomes irksome for him and he seeks his old associates. A friend discovers David and Babbie entering the stage door and phones to Janice, who rushes to the theater and confronts David in Babbie's dressing room. In a tense scene, David says, "It is better that you divorce me" and Janice, in horror, says, "The church forbids it." David, realizing the misery he is causing his wife, decides on suicide, goes to a section of the river not far from his house, sees the body of a man in the river, changes clothes with him and disappears. When the body is found, the face is unrecognizable and because of the clothes, it is identified as David. Janice, satisfied that it is David, marries Dr. Stone. Unable to get money without revealing his identity, David sinks lower and lower. An acquaintance recognizes him one day, has him arrested for some faked-up insurance fraud, and at the trial, because of his repeated denial of his identity and altered appearance, everybody, even his wife, fail to recognize him. With the exception of Babbie, who testifies falsely, as they had planned to go abroad together after his release. Unable to hold the pose any longer, when his daughter is called to identify him, he grabs a penknife one of the lawyers was using and kills himself.—Moving Picture World synopsis
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