Felice, a peasant girl who lives near Florence, Italy, is so beautiful that the villagers call her the "Passion Flower." Jules Mardon, a French artist traveling in Italy for his health, paints Felice, winning her love in the process. Upon the portrait's completion, however, he abandons Felice and returns to Paris, where the painting earns him wealth and fame. Millionaire Armand de Gautier falls in love with Felice's image, buys the portrait, and then seeks out and marries the model. Several years after the birth of the happy couple's child, Armand commissions Jules to paint his wife and son, whereupon the artist again tries to seduce her. When Felice learns that Armand, assuming she has abandoned her plague-stricken child to be with Jules, wants no more to do with her, she kisses her son and then, with the disease on her lips, searches for Jules and kisses him. The artist dies, but Felice and her son survive to be reunited with Armand.