Charlie Jackson, on the death of his parents, is sent to live with his Aunt Sarah, a dope fiend and crook. She works upon the child's sympathies, until she has induced him to commit a robbery in her lodging house. Ten years later finds him her accomplice in all sorts of outrages. Charlie meets a young woman, Constance Grey, who is a teacher in a mission in the neighborhood. He protects her from a pair of roughs and wins her friendship. She gives him books and encourages him to study for a career. At length love develops between them. Constance's rich uncle discovers the attachment, and determined to know just what sort of a boy Charlie is, he takes a room at Aunt Sara's boarding house. She sees him counting his money and prevails upon her nephew to help her rob him. They enter the room and are about to get the money, when the old man wakes. A struggle ensues in which the aunt kills her lodger. But Charlie, who has not seen the blow, believes he is guilty. On the discovery of the crime, the young man is condemned to death and his aunt to life imprisonment. On the eve of Charlie's execution, Aunt Sarah is visited by mental pictures of "what might have been." She sees how, for the boy's sake, she might have become a good woman; how his instincts for decency might have been developed; sees him making a career for himself and marrying Constance. At that moment Charlie and his guards come by the cell on the way to the gallows. She screams out her confession, that it was she who killed the man, that Charlie is innocent.
—Moving Picture World synopsis