David Aldrich takes upon his own shoulders the thefts of a dead friend and is sent to prison for misappropriation of funds. At the end of a five year sentence he comes out of jail to start life anew. Even the woman who loved him thinks him guilty, and he is reduced to dire want before he finds the turn in the path that leads upward. In the end he wins back his fair name and literary fame as well, but only after a series of engrossing happenings that threaten to drive him still deeper Into the underworld.