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Wages of Conscience was something of a halfway house for several faded film favorites, including John Ince (who also directed), Herbert Rawlinson and Grace Darmond. When her sweetheart Rawlinson is framed on a murder charge, Darmond is forced to marry Ince, a man she does not love. The woman dies in childbirth, but Darmond remains in the picture, playing her own grown-up daughter. Twenty years after the fact, Ince feverishly confesses that he trumped up the charges that sent Rawlinson to prison. The latter escapes from jail, but before he can mete out retribution he drops dead of a heart attack. With his daughter by his side, Ince tries to live on as best he can, though the wages of conscience are steep indeed.