BY DAY a beautiful wife-accepting a husband's humble love, his humble home, his humble pleasures. BY NIGHT a glittering butterfly yearning for the wine of life and tossing all to the winds when the glamour of romance calls.

After buying a car, Richard Burton finds that his wife and daughter have become unreasonably extravagant, and is surrounded by sponging friends.

Goody Rickby has a child out of wedlock, but it dies when the father, Gillead Wingate, refuses to acknowledge the child or help the mother get medical aid. Wingate becomes one of the foremost figures in the witch hunts, and Goody plots her revenge with Dr. Nicholas, who is really the Devil.

Young high school teacher Rosalie Allen rejects the love of Dr. Paul Duncan to "save" Lionel Brooks, a man down on his luck.

A woman detained in Germany attempts to escape so she can reunite with her American lover.

Childhood friends Mary Lee and Vera receive two different versions of the 'birds and the bees' from their mothers. Mary Lee gets the facts, while Vera gets a prudish fairytale version. Their lives separate after graduation, Mary Lee becomes a nurse who falls in proper love with a Doctor, whereas Vera follows her mother's advice and seeks to marry a rich man, but falls for the unlawful and syphilitic charms of a wealthy cad. Mary Lee and her Doctor rescue Vera and help her get proper care after a series of revelations showing actual patients of the loathsome disease. Finally, Mary Lee and her new husband volunteer to help our boys fighting the Huns in France.

During World War I, Louise, a French girl, refuses to leave her château after the invading Germans take it over for use as their headquarters. A German officer, Col. von Knorr, makes repeated advances on her, but she rebuffs him.

Overcome with guilt after having an affair with her best friends husband, Clorinda hopes to escape her past by moving to Europe, where she meets Malcolm, a decent man who falls in love with her.

A lonely wife runs off with a traveling actor, taking her boy with her but leaving her daughter behind. The boy, Byron Bennett, grows up, and is stranded back in Mayville with a theater troupe. To make enough money to get out of town, they teach the local fire department how to put on a play. While the village cutie Grace Jessup is being shown how to act, one of the troupe tries to seduce her. Byron, knowing what the lecher is up to, even if Grace doesn't, follows the pair and chokes the man senseless.