In 1908, lonely middle-aged spinster Janet reluctantly bids farewell to a young relative, a schoolboy, who has spent a brief holiday with her. Janet, who is the author of children's adventure stories, longs for the company of children, and one day is surprised to see a little girl playing in her garden. The child is hungry and inadequately clothed, and Janet takes her into the house, determined to keep her. The next day the police enquire throughout the neighbourhood and call at Janet's house. She conceals the fact that she is hiding the child. Later, the local parson calls and tells Janet that Mrs. Star, a widow and the mother of the missing Sally, is not only heart-nroken but a very sick woman.

This is an anthology film with three stories. In "Portrait of a Murderer", a female artist draws sketches of a mysterious neighbor. She is unaware that the man is a murderer. "Duel at Dawn" is set in 1880s Austria. Two military officers fight a duel, with the survivor free to claim the heart of their shared love interest. "The Midas Touch" is a romance story of sorts. Jonah Watson is a successful American businessman, but is disgruntled with his life. He emigrates to England to start a new life, and works as a common servant. But he falls in love with a cockney maid who dreams of marrying into wealth.

A pianist takes his ailing wife out of a London hospital at the same time that another female patient there has suffered a miscarriage. Afterwards, the second woman feels empty and withdrawn, and, thinking that getting her away from London will help, her husband takes her to live at a country estate, which turns out to be the former residence of the pianist who left after his wife died. The woman begins to get visions of the wife and her final days; is she becoming possessed by the dead wife of the pianist?