The Deep Purple (1920)

Two con men, Pop Clark and Harry Leland, take rooms in a small town boardinghouse, where Leland makes love to Doris Moore, a young woman restless to leave her village. Leland convinces Doris to follow the con men to New York City, where she stays in a boardinghouse run by Kate Fallon, a woman with a disreputable past who poses as Leland's aunt. Clark and Leland plan to use Doris to lure young engineer William Lake into a compromising situation, but Kate, who has befriended Doris, tells Lake of the con men's plan, and Lake removes Doris from the clutches of Clark and Leland. Meanwhile, Laylock, a reformed crook and a friend of Kate's, is freed from jail, where he was placed through the contrivance of Clark and Leland, and kills Leland in a pistol duel. Lake persuades his friend, Inspector Bruce, that Leland has committed suicide, and Laylock goes free. Finally, Doris and Lake become engaged.