- Norbert Lusk has built up a remarkably truthful domestic tragedy, made possible by a man's weakness and a woman's selfishness and head-strong will. The author has drawn no fanciful picture of Madeline Danby, who leaves her husband and child for a stage career; neither has he painted her in likable colors. The lack of firmness which the husband displays in permitting Madeline to come back and upset his domestic establishment and thus bring on the tragedy, will also not endear him to an audience. It is a powerful two-reel drama, nevertheless. Norma Talmadge and Harry Morey could not be improved upon, and Producer Van Dyke Brooke deserves equal praise. - Moving Picture World, May 15, 1915.—Pamela Short
- Selfish, snobbish, and with a burning ambition to become a great singer, Madeline Danby leaves her husband and child, Beatrice, to take up vocal lessons with Julius Gerhardt, a celebrated music teacher. Encouraged by his flattery, she continues the lessons until her money is gone. Then she asks Gerhardt for the public appearance he had guaranteed her. He agrees to carry out his promise under certain conditions. Realizing she has been tricked, she denounces and leaves the rascal. Without his influence, however, she finds there is no opening for her in opera, and eventually is glad to accept a position in a cheap cabaret. As the result of a row with a young loafer, she gets fired and rather than go back to her husband, the embittered woman writes him she has destroyed herself. Having cut the last tie binding her to the straight and narrow path, she prepares to go back to the operatic stage, and Gerhardt. Years later, Danby is remarried to a quiet, middle-aged woman, who makes a good mother to Beatrice, who has inherited from her mother a craze for music and the stage. Stopping at the village hotel, Vashti-Vetsera, otherwise Madeline, decides to drop in and say hello to Danby. He is horrified when she smilingly introduces herself, but with tigerish delight, she goads him by threats of exposure. At dinner she meets Mrs. Danby, the second, and makes things very uncomfortable for all concerned. As yet Madeline has not seen Beatrice. While planning a sort of grand surprise party, Beatrice and Madeline come face to face. Learning the girl's ambition, the woman's soul has been so hardened that she at first tells Beatrice she will take her back with her and introduce her to life as she has found it, but gradually her better nature asserts itself. Recoiling at the thought, she accidentally backs into the flaming gas jet, and instantly her flimsy gown is ablaze. Shrieking, she plunges down the stairs a veritable pillar of flame. Madeline exacts a promise from Beatrice to give up all thoughts of the stage, then dies in her daughter's arms.—Moving Picture World synopsis
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