The film was based on the short story "Laurels and the Lady" by Leonard Merrick published in his 1908 collection The Man Who Understood Women.

Rosa and her troupe are billed for a show in the local theater and while Arthur is waiting at the stage door to see his charmer, he lights a cigar that had been given to him by Poll.

The cigar is of the trick kind, and the explosion that follows so injures Arthur's eyes that later while sitting in the theater watching the young French woman dance he becomes blind.

Realizing that she has caused the blindness of the man she loves, Poll passes herself off as the French woman, imitating her voice and accent so perfectly that Arthur is deceived, and they are later married.

They both live happily until Poll learns of the coming of a great eye specialist who could restore Arthur's sight.