Edward Sheldon

Young Nell loses everything and her father is sent to prison. She joins the Salvation Army and tries to redeem him when he comes out....

Lulu Belle is singing in a cheap dive in Natchez, Mississippi in the early 1900's when she meets rising young attorney George Davis. He gives up his fiancée and career to marry Lulu Bell. When his money runs out, Lulu Belle goes to work in a New Orleans club run by tough gambler Mark Brady. She tries to send George back to Natchez by pretending that she has fallen for prize-fighter Butch Cooper but George, in a fit of jealousy, drives a handful of forks into Butch's face. He is sent to prison and Lulu goes to New York with millionaire Harry Randolph, who makes her the singing sensation of Broadway and asks her to marry him. She refuses when she learns that George has been released from prison, realizing that he is the only man she ever truly loved.

Art editor Madeleine Damian carries on numerous loveless affairs. After a failed relationship with advertiser Felix Courtland, the increasingly depressed Madeleine attempts suicide. When Jack Garet, her secretary and former lover, tries to blackmail her, Madeleine resigns and seeks a reclusive life. Neighbor David Cousins befriends Madeleine, but soon Courtland and Garet discover her whereabouts and disrupt her new life.

After her father dies, Lily moves to the city to live with her strict aunt. During the day Lily works in her aunt's bookstore, and at night she sneaks across the street to model for Richard, a sculptor with whom she falls in love. A patron of Richard's, Baron von Merzbach, develops an interest in Lily that may not be with the best of intentions.

A beautiful opera star kept by a rich older man falls in love with a young clergyman.

Faro Black, the chief of the Gypsies, finds out that his son Faro and his girlfriend Egypt have gotten married. Infuriated, he tells that their marriage isn't valid, since Egypt is actually the daughter of wealthy Gordon Lindsay, who is on his way to the gypsy camp to claim her. The two promise to remain faithful to each other, but as time passes and she never hears from Faro, her love turns to bitterness.

A young man planning to marry receives a cautionary tale from his bishop based on the sad tale of the bishop's own early romance.

When composer Anselm Kardos leaves his alcoholic wife, he gives his daughter Lily an unfinished love ode entitled "The Song of Songs" and warns her to keep her artistic temperament in check.