Artist Standish using his wife Mary as his model finishes a painting of the Madonna. When the Connoisseur and the Parishioner inspect the picture, the Connoisseur tells Standish that the model was a one-time paramour. Buying the painting they depart. Standish confronts Mary, who tells him that she believed herself legally married to the Connoisseur. Unbelieving he ejects her and their baby son. Penniless Mary leaves her boy on the steps of a monastery. Years later before becoming a monk the boy is sent to see the world. Wandering into a café he is seduced by Beauty as the other inmates of the place, Lust, Rum, Avarice and Passion dance around him. The proprietor enters; it is Mary. Recognizing the crucifix, she left with him as a baby she persuades him to go back without revealing her identity. After he becomes a priest Mary, now a bedraggled old woman enters his church. She recognizes him and just before she dies her son gives her absolution.
Emily Stevens
as Mary Gadman
George Le Guere
as The Boy
Theodore Babcock
as Standish
Fred Stone
as Parishioner
Howard Truesdale
as Father Anthony
Henri Bergman
as Avarice
Vivien Oakland
as Beauty
Ralph Austin
as The Neighbor
Walter Hitchcock
as The Connoisseur
Effingham Pinto
as Lust
Del DeLois
as Rum
Florence Short
as Passion
