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This drama is not based on the play by the same name, but on the novel, Foul Play by Charles Reade (to make matters even more confusing, a talkie based on the play was filmed in 1937). Allan Bancroft (Sheldon Lewis) takes control of his father's business and uses underhanded means to cover up his mistakes. To save a debt he forges a check to his friend Chester Livingston (Harold Meltzer), which gets Livingston in trouble. The young man is arrested for forgery and is sent to jail when Bancroft won't help him. He is sentenced to an Australian penal colony for five years, but is released much earlier for good behavior, and for saving the governor-general's daughter from a runaway horse. Around the time Livingston is given his ticket-of-leave, Bancroft goes to Australia and becomes engaged to Helen Gerard (Eleanor Woodruff) -- the same girl Livingston rescued. When he needs more money, Bancroft plots to sink a fake shipment of gold which he has insured. But he doesn't realize that Helen (not to mention Livingston) are on the same ship. Although the plan is discovered, the boat wrecks anyhow and Helen and Livingston are cast onto an island. Helen finally realizes that her fiancee is guilty of all the wrongdoing and falls in love with Livingston.