Plot

A good mother, dying, bequeaths to her daughter a well-worn Bible, beseeching her to follow its teachings day by day. Her father, a brutal inebriate, comes home and finds her reading the old book, snatches it from her, stamps upon it, and falls to the floor in a drunken fury. Gates, a plausible young stranger, hearing her cries, rushes in, learns her story, eventually wins her confidence, and she gives him her hand in marriage. She finds out that he is a gambler, daily quarrels ensue; her only consolation is the Bible. One night he brings home a stranger, introduces him to her as a friend of his, Burke. Although she is dismissed from the room, she observes that they are discussing the contents of a big Gladstone bag, filled with bundles of bills of a large denomination. The stranger asks that it be locked in the gambler's safe for the night. Bess retires to her own room, but hearing a noise in the front room in which the safe is located, she discovers to her horror, that her husband is about to break the safe, evidently to thus give the impression that it was rifled by burglars, and then get away with the money. At the same time, the owner of the bag discovers the perfidy of his friend and has secretly covered him with his revolver. The wife, in an agony of fear, rushes into the yard, but with ready wit, throws a stone through the window, and then retires to her own room. This diverts the man who is preparing to blow the safe and the other man who is about to shoot him, frustrating both. The following morning she finds a bill-book under the pillow of the stranger's bed, learning from it that his name is not Burke, that he is in reality a brother of her husband, and is a defaulter. She finds, at the same time, a letter from his heart-broken old mother, which moves her mightily. When Burke, discovering his loss, returns to get the coat, she brings him to his senses and shows him a way to right the wrong by returning the money to the bank and saving criminal proceedings. In the interim, her own husband has read the letter of his mother, is similarly moved and is finding consolation in his wife's Bible when she returns to their home. The lessons in the good book have not been lost. She has practiced them and brought the sinners back into the light from their crooked, wayward paths.—Moving Picture World synopsis