Ralph Brooks, although engaged to Julia Dean, meets and becomes infatuated with Rita Reynolds. She gains his sympathy by telling untrue stories of her husband's brutality. They plan to run away together but while Rita is taking a large sum of money from her husband's safe, he returns early from a business trip and a fight ensues which results in her husband's death.

Betty, the only daughter of Jenkins, a wealthy farmer, is secretly loved by Tom Saunders, a farm hand. Tom's scapegrace brother, Dick, returns from the city and is befriended by Tom. Dick later wins Betty's love. While Jenkins is blasting out a tree stump with dynamite, Betty and Dick are passing close by unnoticed, and the explosion destroys Betty's sight.

Sicilian king Leontes jealously accuses his wife Hermione of infidelity with his best friend, and while imprisoned, she delivers a child. Sent away, the child is raised by Bohemian shepherds. The Winter's Tale was the first of six Shakespeare adaptations from Thanhouser, and was the 13th or 14th title from the studio in its first nine weeks of releases.

Edwin Thanhouser re-made The Vicar of Wakefield in 1917 as a eight-reel feature film providing us with a frame of reference for the maturation of film language and cinematic techniques over the ensuing eight year period.