John Hedden is a middle-aged man who is passionately fond of children. He spends a great deal of time at the home of a widow friend who is happily blessed with three beautiful children. He meets there Helen Knox, who is acting as the children's governess. Realizing that she could create the happy home life that he so craves, he asks her to marry him. She willingly consents, but after the marriage greatly disappoints him by turning from the beautiful home he has made for her to the allurements of society. In order to offset his loneliness he steals away, while his wife goes out to society affairs, to the companionship of the widow's children. Finally, one Sunday morning, again compelled to eat a lonely breakfast, he decides to take the children up to the zoo without his wife's knowledge. He leaves her a letter, saying that he was called away on an important engagement, and goes to the widow's house, where he prevails upon her to accompany him and the children. While at the zoo be is seen by a gossipy friend of his wife's. She goes at once to the wife and tells her what she saw. The wife, already mystified by her husband's letter, is quite ready to believe the friend's gossip. She goes at once to the widow's home and there finds that her husband has already returned with the children. She accuses the widow of trying to steal her husband, and the widow, in turn, tells her how she has disappointed her husband in his ideal of home life. In order to prove her assertion, she leads the wife to the nursery door, and there shows her the children with her husband. He is having the time of his life telling them stories. The wife realizes what a failure she has made of her married life. She begs her friend's pardon and steals quietly away to her own home. Later her husband finds her there in tears, which leads to a complete understanding and reconciliation.
—Moving Picture World synopsis