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- This is a bogus title which appears in The Universal Silents by Richard A. Braff. No film of this title was either produced or released at this time.
- Bertie Cecil is a member of England's nobility and of the National Guardsmen. He finds particular diversion in innocent flirtations with married women. Lady Guinevere likes him in a silly sort of way, and determinedly resolves to keep the romance from her husband's observation. Bertie's brother Berkeley, loses heavily at gambling and asks Bertie for financial assistance. Bertie patiently but sadly explains that he cannot meet his own debts. At nine o'clock that night Lady Guinevere visits Bertie in his home. Berkeley goes to a Jew money-lender, offers a note tor sufficient money to cover the deficit, and signs his brother's name, endorsed by a friend, Lord Rockingham. A little later the last slim vestige of Bertie's fortune is wiped away. Rockingham's eight-year-old sister comes to him and offers him some gold. Bertie tells her be cannot accept the money, and that when she has grown to womanhood she will know the reason. He asks tor the little enamel box in which she has carried the sold pieces as a memento, and receives it just as he is summoned by a messenger to Rockingham's quarters. He finds Lord Rockingham and the Jew money-lender, with the forged note. Rockingham pleads with him to deny the charge, and explain where he was the night the note was executed. If Bertie speaks, he must soil a woman's name; if he spares her, his silence must be accepted as admission of his guilt. He keeps his silence and his faith with Lady Guinevere. It is only a few minutes later, when the Jew attempts to place the handcuffs on him, that he realizes he is under arrest. However, he escapes and goes to Africa and engages under the French flag. Cigarette, soldier of France and daughter of the army, loves Bertie. He looked upon her wild dances and riotous revelries with a little disgust and a great pity. Ten years he had lived under the French flag and the African sun. But the memory of before still lived and lingered with him. To Africa came a party of tourists from England. They visited the barracks. Among the women in the party was a sweet, young, beautiful slip of a near-woman. She was to Bertie a link of the past, a vision of the happy yesterday that had died. He was, to her only a soldier of France. But somehow they became acquainted, and somehow she became interested in him. And Cigarette saw it all. When he fell wounded in battle. Cigarette dragged him from the red field to a shack in the outskirts. And through the long, black night she nursed him. Then, faintly, feebly, she heard his voice and a name. Eagerly she listened, her heart beating a prayer, the only prayer her being was ever known to make. But the whispered name was the name of the other. She choked the sob and flew from the tent, that he might never know. One day the English woman saw the little enamel box, now rusty, battered and tarnished. She saw it, and started and stared, and asked him where and how he obtained it. He related the incident, and she told him it was she! She explained that Lord Rockingham was with her in Africa, and begged him to stay until her brother returned to the house. With a sudden, startled fear he begged her not to disclose his presence, and flew from hers. Once, on a street in Algiers, he looked into his brother's face. He greeted Bertie with a vague, trembling fear. But Bertie told him to leave Africa with his title and his honor, return to England and live his life according to them. An irresistible something drew him back to the woman. The colonel of Bertie's regiment saw him come from the house, and in jealous rage demanded to know why he had gone there. Bertie was silent. The colonel sarcastically insinuated that the aristocrat was cold to her equals, and carried on her midnight intrigues with the blackguards of his camp. A moment after the deed, Bertie realized that he had struck him. He was court-martialed, found guilty, and sentenced to be shot on the morrow. Cigarette heard, and. frantic with grief and dismay, she ran up the street, and stopped to peer into a face. The face was the face of Bertie. She stopped him and excitedly told him all, and learned he was Bertie's brother. To her the boy confessed all, and not waiting, she had him write his statement, snatched the paper and dashed off for the marshal's tent. Her story was told and proved. The stay of execution of sentence was given her, and she resumed her break-neck ride. She rode into the scone of the execution just as the command was given to fire. Her shouted "Stop, in the name of France!" came a moment too late. The command had already been given, and the guns were speaking their dirge. But even fleeter than the leaden death, she hurled herself from her horse, in front of Bertie. After the first moment of dull, despairing astonishment, he realized that she had sacrificed her life for him, realized in the last chapter all the devotion and integrity of her love. Slowly he dropped his head until his lips met hers. But the long-longed-for sweet had come too late, and the victory of her love was too late to be anything but defeat. Once she smiled, a sweet, fleeting smile of triumph, and in the kiss that she had hoped and lived for, she died. In England Bertie and Guinevere sat together. Sadly they smiled at each other. They were thinking of a distant grave, the human cost of their happiness.
- "The Woman in White" is the story of a bold substitution made because a young wife refused to transfer her property to her scheming husband, Laura being the wife and Sir Percival Glyde being the husband. The Woman in White of the story is a girl of about Laura's general age and personal appearance, who has exhibited mental peculiarities from childhood. They were harmless in a way, one of the principal eccentricities being that of always dressing in white. When she finally became a source of distress to her own mother, the latter preferred to have her placed in a private establishment rather than a pauper asylum, and the mother thus played a part in the strange deception which was practiced by Sir Percival Glyde and Count Fosco. In order to obtain an enormous estate which would descend to Sir Percival in case of Laura's death without issue, the feeble minded and feeble bodied Woman in White was drilled to impersonate Laura while the latter was incarcerated in a private madhouse. Such is the plot of the story with Count Fosco as the principal conspirator and a little Italian named Professor Pesca as the real instrument of justice, although Laura's lover, Walter Hartwright, was an active agent. The photodrama opens with a revelation of the existence of one of those brotherhoods organized in Latin countries for political or criminal purposes. The members of the secret society are all gathered when Count Fosco betrays them by signaling to the police. A raid and terrific struggle follow; but little Professor Pesca escapes to the consternation of the Judas who has betrayed his fellow-members of the society. The love story of Walter Hartwright follows. He is the drawing master at the home of Laura and falls deeply in love with her. His love is reciprocated by the charming young girl, but the usual obstacle interposes that makes stories oi this kind interesting. Laura's husband has already been selected for her and the discovery of her affection for the drawing master results in his discharge. An end being made to the intimate relations she enjoyed with Walter Hartwright, and the young girl being completely under the dominance of her English father, she is compelled to marry the baronet that he has chosen, Sir Percival Glyde. Sir Percival Glyde is one of the decadent gentlemen of title who come to this country every year in search of some weak-minded heiress; and as his main purpose in matrimony is that of obtaining property he falls into the scheme of substitution suggested by bold Count Fosco. He has borrowed money from Fosco, and is such a moral idiot himself that he consents to have his wife drugged and incarcerated in a madhouse when she refuses to transfer her inheritance to him. It is almost unbelievable at this stage of our civilization that such a scheme could be carried out without immediate discovery because of the large number of people involved in transferring the young wife from her home to the private asylum and in the acceptance as a substitute of the half-witted woman who is nearly at the point of death. There could be no intelligent and honest acceptance of the sickly idiot in the place of the bright and charming girl she resembled, but as a matter of fact, the use of private asylums in England for the purpose of incarcerating people who are in the way was so common at that time that the great novels of Wilkie Collins and Charles Reade on that subject stirred up a political and moral revolution. Laura manages to escape from the private asylum after her substitute has died and been buried and she visits the graveyard where a stone has been raised sacred to her memory. Walter Hartwright meets her there. Believing her to be dead he visits her tomb as a matter of sentiment and finds a woman in black who is none other than the one supposed to be lying beneath the sod. The story now turns to the re-establishment of Laura's identity and this is brought about by the intuitive steps taken by Hartwright to follow up the associations of Sir Percival Glyde. He finds him in company with Count Fosco, then shadows the latter persistently, but without result, until he describes the arch villain to his particular friend and associate, little Professor Pesca. Pesca has not forgotten the treachery of Count Fosco and might be excused for writing the latter's death warrant on the spot. Instead, he gives Walter a communication to deliver which warns Fosco that he will meet his death by secret violence unless he re-establishes the right of the living Laura to her inheritance and to her place in society. Armed with this letter Walter extorts a written confession from the arch conspirator, the consideration being that Count Fosco shall be permitted two days' time to escape vengeance at the hands of the Brotherhood. The interesting and impressive Count Fosco, one of the boldest villains ever delineated in the social drama, removes the hirsute ornaments on his face and otherwise disguises himself to escape what should be coming to him. We feel that he is well out of the way, but what about the drunken decadent of attractive title, Sir Percival Glyde, who has slipped into matrimony and a tremendous inheritance with a conscienceless lack of scruples peculiar to his kind? A visitation of God causes the death of Sir' Percival Glyde in a highly dramatic fire scene. He is partially destroyed when rescued by Walter Hartwright and carried into the open to perish miserably. His dying confession completes the chain of evidence necessary to prove his own infamy and the true identity of the young wife he had placed in a private madhouse. The play ends with the final terror of Count Fosco. He has been detected by members of the Brotherhood in spite of his disguise and is shadowed from point to point in some very effective scenes until we see him in the last one lying dead at the heads of those he betrayed, alone in a humiliating end of a long life of degraded ability.
- Robert Warning, very much in love with his wife, and detesting that dog that is invariably placed at his table, decides to decapitate the canine. His wife circumvents him. A row ensues and the husband leaves for his office in a huff. A month passes and still the coldness exists between them. Warning gets a telephone call at his office that the stork has arrived. Elated, he dismisses his office force, hies himself to the club, and his fellow-members and drinks to the health of the stork's gift. Arriving home, he is almost prostrated to find a bouncing puppy instead of a bouncing baby. Indignant at the misunderstanding, he resolves to go to his uncle to recuperate from the shock, only to he confronted at every turn by dogs of all descriptions. In the midst of his turmoil at his new abode, he receives a wire to return home because the stork has made another visit. Thinking to please his wife, he purchases clothes for the puppy's outfit and departs for home. Imagine his utter amazement and joy when he discovers that the stork has really left a baby this time.
- Billy Quirk and Count Gastrome are rivals for Violet Horner's heart. Vi's dad wishes her to marry into nobility, but Vi loves Billy. Dad has forbidden Billy entrance to his house, but by a clever ruse Billy gets the Count tries to steal some of Vi's birthday presents, but Billy catches him in the act. Billy, who is in a suit of armor, steals them. Later, by dropping the presents into the pockets of the different guests, Billy makes each think that they are kleptomaniacs. Dad, worried, telephones to the police. A diamond brooch is lost. Billy finds this and drops it into the Count's pocket. When the police arrive the Count, not knowing the brooch is in his pocket, suggests that everyone be searched. The brooch is found on him and he is arrested. Billy then succeeds in getting all the jewels into Dad's pocket. Dad discovers this while standing in front of the armor. Billy raises the visor of the armor and catches dad looking at the jewels, and threatens to tell the guests that Dad has done the stealing. Thus be succeeds in getting Dad's consent to marry Violet.
- Claude Petreaux is an old doll maker, who lives with his daughter, Lucille. He has an apprentice, Villon, by name, a worthless man who loves Lucille. The young folks wish to marry, but Claude denies his permission. Villon persuades Lucille to elope. The old man is broken down with grief and swears that she will never darken his door again. Five years pass. In a distant city the young people are struggling to make a living. As a doll maker, Villon has not achieved success and he has already began to descend the steep roads of dissipation. A little girl, four years, has been born to them. One day the little girl brings home a dog to the already half-starved household. Villon, in drunken anger, at having another mouth to feed, kicks the dog brutally, and would put him out of doors, but the little girl takes the dog in her arms and pleads that it may he kept. In this she receives the support of her mother. In rage he vows that he will never feed them and leaves them to shift for themselves. The old man, in the meantime, feels that death is near, which increases his longing for Lucille, who paints a miniature of her baby and sends it to her father. He receives the miniature and calls in a notary. He disposes of his stock, and, using the miniature as a model, he fashions a doll and dispatches it to them. The wolf of starvation has made its appearance to Lucille and her child. She is anxiously awaiting a return to her letter. The packet with the doll arrives. The little girl is delighted with it, but the mother is keenly disappointed that no tangible help has been vouchsafed, and gives way to despair. At this time Villon returns deeply repentant with promises of reformation which woman-like, she accepts. The father takes the doll away from his child and throws it out of the window. The dog runs after it and the little girl sobs for her new toy. The father scolds her and the mother tries in vain to give her comfort. In the meantime the dog has found the doll in the yard and proceeds to tear it apart. The child seeing this, sobs even more piteously than ever at the destruction of her plaything. The mother's heart relents and she bids Villon go and rescue it. He brings it in, in a mangled condition when to their surprise and delight they find the concealed money.
- The Governor's daughter has many suitors. She tells them all that the one who brings her a branch from the Indian's sacred tree at the top of Montmartre shall win her hand. Two of the suitors accept the challenge and start out. Both arrive at the mount at the same time. A duel takes place between them and the defeated suitor apparently leaves for home, but realizing that the captain will win the hand of the girl, he plots with the Indians to do away with him for having dared to touch the tree which they think is sacred. The Indians come upon the captain as he descends the tree with the precious branch and invite him to a feast. In the meantime several of the savages have loosened the roof of the cave and as the captain enters, the top caves in. The captain's life is spared, but he loses his eyesight forever. He becomes the charge of the superstitious Indians and is given to a squaw, who is instructed to take care of him. Months afterward, the blind captain tells his faithful guard of his lost love and why he risked his life to climb their sacred tree. In the meantime, the Governor's daughter, believing the captain dead, consents to marry his rival, who has claimed that he was wounded while endeavoring to reach the tree and carried back the tale that the captain was killed. The Indian girl, after hearing the captain's story, yields to his entreaties to help him escape, and arriving at the Governor's house they learn that the ceremony is about to take place in the chapel. As the Indian girl leads the blind captain into the church, the priest who is about to pronounce the rival and the Governor's daughter man and wife, is stopped by the cries of the captain. He tells his story and the Indian girl also tells the plot of the rival. The rival rushes from the church and the Governor's daughter, realizing the great wrong which she has done the captain, falls on her knees to ask forgiveness, which is gladly given and the captain leads her to the altar and the ceremony is continued.
- It all depended on Bernice. Whether her consumptive brother obtained the light and air that meant life to him, and whether her aged mother and little sister ate dally and slept nightly, all depended upon her. Bernice made a few dollars as a stenographer. One day her pressing needs presented a new view of economics to Bernice. Her employer had too much money, she had nothing. The checkbook lay open on the desk. He would never miss it; why shouldn't she. Her employer did miss it, and sent for a detective. She was suspected. The detective called at her home in her absence, and questioned her family. The consumptive brother admitted that she had given him a sum equal to the amount missing. Bernice was arrested. A short while after the incident, her mother went to the little prison where Bernice was awaiting trial, leaving the sick boy to take care of the baby June. In the boy's mind was conflict, in his heart was war. Long he thought, and then his resolution was formed. Taking the tot, he rallied all his weak strength, and started for his sister's employer's office. The walk was long, he was weary and exhausted, but he stubbornly continued, reached the door, and fell fainting. Baby June entered the office, and walked straight to the employer. He looked into June's eyes, and saw the eyes of his own love lost. The baby's story was told, and the baby fingers led him to the door where the unconscious boy lay. The invalid was revived, the girl's sacrifice explained. At her employer's request, she was liberated from prison and her position was returned to her. The consumptive went to Mexico at her employer's expense, and Baby June won a life-long friend.
- It required an effort for the old violinist to sell his machine for food and heat. He loved his instrument as though it were something human, and dear and kind to him. But the little one was crying for food, and the instrument was compelled to earn it. Walking away with the money that it procured, he ran across a little street Arab, soiled, hungry and dirty, and his heart went out to the mite. He took the boy home. A few days later a celebrated musician brought his violin to the old man to be mended. He took his overcoat off to explain the defects in the instrument, and the little erstwhile waif, in child play, put on the big overcoat upside down. As he did so, the wallet that the musician had carried in his pocket fell into an umbrella standing nearby. The musician left and later discovered the loss of his money. He at once returned and had the old violinist arrested. It was not before his trial that the boy found the money in the umbrella and hurried to the court to explain the circumstance. The musician saw his mistake, and returned with the liberated violinist, and as he passed from the house he put the roll of bills that the wallet had contained into the hands of the boy who had shown him his mistake.
- A Mexican bandit with his motherless girl is chased by a sheriff's posse, and the little girl is lost in the race. The bandit is captured, tried and sentenced to be hung, while the little girl is found by a traveler and placed in an orphan asylum. The bandit escapes and swears vengeance on the judge who sentenced him. In the meantime, the little girl is adopted by the judge, who finds a locket on her neck. Fifteen years after, the bandit captures the judge's adopted daughter, not knowing she is his own daughter, and takes her to his hiding place, leaving her in charge of a mute. He goes to send notice to the judge that he can have his daughter by paying a large ransom. During his absence, the girl gets the better of the mute and almost escapes as the bandit returns. He sends the mute outdoors and tells him to shoot, and shoot to kill, if anybody as much as moves the blanket at the window. He then locks the door. The girl attacks him, and in the scuffle he finds the locket by which he recognizes the girl as his own daughter. He goes to the window to tell his men to let her go, and as be moves the blanket the mute shoots, and he is mortally wounded, but has strength enough to call his men and tell them the ransom is paid, and for them to escort her to safety. As they leave the room he falls dead without telling anyone she is his own daughter.
- Lawrence, the son of wealthy parents meets Miriam on a highway. He is attracted by her beauty and sweetness and upon a second meeting, invites her to the county fair. While they are taking in the exhibits, some of the playful rubes begin throwing confetti and some of it is thrown into Miriam's eyes. Lawrence takes her home. The country physician is called. He recommends a specialist he sent for. Lawrence persuades Miriam and her mother to allow him to assume the expense. He then goes home and tells his father of his love for Miriam. The father angrily dismisses him. The specialist arrives. Miriam's eyes are bandaged with the strict command that the bandage should not be removed for three days if she is to regain her sight permanently. Larry, the following day, is thrown from his horse over the edge of a cliff. He grabs hold of some small shrubs and hanging there calls for help. Miriam hears Larry's call and gets up frightened, and gropes her way out of the house. As she draws closer to the place from which the cries had come, she listens intently for a repetition of the cry for help. In great anguish she snatches the bandage from her eyes, sees Larry, grasps his arm and calls for help. Larry's father, walking down the road, hears her call and rushes to the scene, and he and Miriam together pull Larry up to safe ground. The father turns and calls to Miriam. She turns in the direction of his voice and staggers toward him, for she has become totally blind. The father, realizing the terrible sacrifice she has made for his son, goes to her, takes her in his arms and gives her to Larry and though blind, she snuggles contentedly in Larry's arms.