Judge Hall sentences a youth to a long term in the penitentiary for a grave offense, but he makes a lifelong enemy of the culprit's widowed mother, who convinces herself that she owes the judge an injury. A year later she receives word that her son has died in prison. Years pass before Madge Cord, the widowed mother, and Judge Hall meet again. She has prospered and remarried. She and her second husband live at a fashionable hotel and among their associates are Tim Burke, a political fixer, and George Booth, a broker. To this hotel comes Judge Hall, who has just been appointed to the Federal bench in the city where the Cords live. Accompanying the judge is his son, Elwood. Mrs. Cord discovers Judge Hall's presence without his being aware of her existence. Her hatred for him is revived. She makes the acquaintance of his son, Elwood, planning to ruin him by teaching him to gamble. This is to be her revenge. Before the plot has progressed far Mrs. Cord finds a way to take her revenge and at the same time turn a profit for herself and her friends. A case involving railroad rates has been heard by Judge Hall, who is about ready to render decision. The opinion will have a tremendous effect, one way or the other, upon the stock market. Young Elwood Hall has become heavily indebted to Burke and Cord through gambling and cannot pay. Mrs. Cord, together with Burke and Booth, use these debts as a threat to force Elwood to obtain secretly an advance copy of his father's forthcoming decision. With this valuable information they prepare to make a clean-up on the stock market. All the money they can raise goes into the pool. The conspirators watch the ticker. For a while everything goes in their favor. Mrs. Cord, feeling that her hour of triumph has come, cannot resist the temptation to gloat over her enemy and calls on Judge Hall. She identifies herself to him and calmly proceeds to relate how she has ruined his son and clouded his own decision. Meanwhile, something has gone wrong on the stock exchange. Cord, Booth and Burke see their stocks take a drop. It is the arrival of the newspaper extras which causes the sudden reversal, but it comes so quickly that there is no way for them to protect themselves. The newspapers arrive at the home of Judge Hall just as Elwood, whom the Judge has called in to confront Mrs. Cord, admits that her story is true and that he gave out advance information. Through his story Judge Hall learns that it was an early draft of the opinion which Elwood gave out. He shows Mrs. Cord the news story which indicates that the decision rendered was written before new evidence had come to light and is the opposite of the original. Mrs. Cord realizes that she and her friends are ruined, crushed, and Judge Hall calls a servant to show her the door.