- A poor ditch-digger, Pietro Massena, lovingly raises his motherless daughter Rosina. Phil Griswold, in order to throw a party to celebrate his expected inheritance, induces his friend Robbins to rob the flower shop where he works. After the inheritance goes to Phil's brother William, who refuses Phil money to return to the flower shop, Phil abducts William's daughter Dorothy and sends a "Black Hand" ransom demand to throw suspicion onto Pietro, who earlier frightened Dorothy when he delivered a Christmas tree to William's house. William drives into the slums looking for Pietro and accidentally runs down Rosina. The grieving Pietro goes to the flower shop on Christmas morning to buy a rose for Rosina's coffin and is accused of the kidnapping, because Phil arranged to have a man known by "the sign of the rose" pick up the ransom money there. Pietro threatens to kill the arresting detective so that he can return to his "bambino," when William arrives with news that Dorothy has been found. William offers Pietro compensation, but he refuses and sorrowfully returns home.—Pamela Short
- In order to fittingly celebrate an expected inheritance from his late father. Phil Griswold. a worthless young roué, persuades his friend, Robbins, to steal from his employer, a fashionable florist, the funds necessary to make the revelry even greater. To his chagrin, Phil learns the next day that he has been cut off with one dollar, and thus the two young men are placed in a position from which they realize it will be difficult to extricate themselves. On a visit to the home of his brother, William Griswold, Phil notices his niece's fear of an Italian ditch-digger, who has come bringing a Christmas tree. He determines to kidnap Dorothy, and manages to direct suspicion toward Pietro. Searching the Italian quarter for the alien in his automobile, William runs over Pietro's little daughter, Rosina, and kills her. Pietro wanders to the flower-shop at which Robbins is employed, and entering to buy a rose for the little girl's grave he is seized by detectives, who think him the writer of the mysterious note which told their client to know the kidnapper by the "Sign of the Rose." A thrilling climax is reached when Pietro threatens to kill the brutal detective in order to return to his tenement home where Rosina's body lies. The suspense is broken when William Griswold rushes in with word that Dorothy has been found. Thus Pietro is allowed to go on his way.—Moving Picture World synopsis
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