Olive Sherman's fiancé, Tracy Norton, breaks their engagement when her father dies leaving her penniless, and it is revealed that he had been tampering with his company's funds. After Olive becomes an efficient member of his father's office staff, Norton circulates a damaging rumor about Olive so that his wealthy new fiancée will not think he was only after Olive's money. The subsequent ostracism causes Olive to leave town. Three years later, Olive, having learned how to blackmail, appears as a South American widow in Newport. She wins Norton's confidence with her promise to introduce him into high society, but instead uses a photograph of them together to cause Norton's wife to leave him penniless. Just as Olive is about to marry newspaperman Jim Waldron, whom she befriended earlier when he was a burglar, Jim's mother learns of Olive's past and forbids the marriage. Upon seeing a vision of Christ and the Magdalen, however, she changes her mind and consents to the union.
—AFI