And the Children Pay

William Clark sends his son Billy to a brothel to learn of life's necessary evils, on the eve of his departure for college. On his Christmas holiday, Billy, who has fallen in with a fast crowd, persuades his childhood sweetheart, Margery Reynolds, to drink wine and then takes the intoxicated girl to a hotel. Back at college, Billy refuses to marry the pregnant Marge, and she, unable to confide in her father, a minister, leaves for Chicago, where her child is born blind and crippled. When Marge, forced into prostitution, recognizes Billy at a brothel, he is arrested and fined $550 for child support. After the baby dies in court, however, Billy returns home, and Marge is taken to Kate Addams' Coulter House for fallen women. At the insistence of his father, Billy agrees to marry another woman, but Rev. Reynolds, whose wife has died of grief, learns of Billy's betrayal and denounces him from the altar. Billy, taken ill, dies in his mother's arms.