Anna Gray is a quiet, high principled young woman who falls in love with Perry Carlyle, a weak, young clerk whose own extravagant tastes, and the dissipations induced by endeavoring to please Ruth Jordon have combined to plunge him into both debt and dissatisfaction at his lot. He finds that his position in the Treasury Department enables him to obtain possession of pieces of mutilated money and that by pasting them together he can induce tradesmen to accept them for good bills and so add considerably to his income. In a very few days, however, the Secret Service men are on his trail and it is only owing to the heroic self-sacrifice of Anna that he is saved from the consequences of his crime. Ruth in his trouble discards him. and as he realizes that her affection was inspired only by mercenary motives, while Anna loves him sincerely for himself alone, he is swept in a revulsion of feeling to a love for her which is as deep and lasting as her own.