Rags, a penniless orphan, flees from child welfare workers and an orphan asylum. Simultaneously, Caroline Busby, whose husband is a crook, regrets her past and starts for another city. The child and the woman meet and decide to begin life over again together. They are happy for a time, then the woman’s husband locates her and demands protection from the police. Caroline wants to live straight and turns her husband over to detectives. He accuses her as his accomplice. The couple and the child are arrested. Busby is sent to prison, and his wife discharged. The judge, at the protest of the philanthropists, orders the child to an orphan asylum. Grief-stricken over this loss, Caroline hurls herself into a river.