Robert Strickland, the self-confessed murderer of Gerald Trask, refuses to defend himself on the witness stand. His attorney, however, cross-examines Strickland's wife.
John Douglas divorces his wife, taking custody of their son Kenneth and leaving her with their little daughter Kathleen. Mrs. Douglas dies in poverty, and Kathleen falls in with crook Jack Baggot and his wife, who teach her how to pick pockets.
Little Joyce Fairfax loves her thoroughbred colt “Satan.” When financial difficulties force her young, widowed mother to sell her estranged grandfather, Judge Boyce, who had disapproved of her mother’s choice of husband, buys him secretly. When the judge also suffers reverses, he enters Satan...