When Mary and Fannie Graham, daughters of a good mother but a father with criminal instincts, are left motherless, Mary flees from her unhappy surroundings while Fannie, inheriting her father's disposition, remains and is raised as a thief.
In order to be admitted to his school fraternity, David Bruce is told to impersonate a Balkan prince. In that guise, Bruce leaves for the prince's tiny municipality. En route, he becomes involved with a gang of anarchists who order him to kill the prince he is supposed to be impersonating.
At the death of Count de Beaulieu, his daughter Jeanne learns that her father had been the arch-criminal known as The Phantom. The only other person who knew her father's identity was his lieutenant, Franz Leroux, who now demands that Jeanne marry him in return for his silence.
