The Global Archive Complementing the Tone of Dynamite Smith: Cult Guide

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Dora Chester violates the Eleventh Commandment -- "Thou Shalt Marry None but the Man Thou Lovest" -- when she rejects her sweetheart, Robert Stanton, and becomes engaged to the wealthy Kenneth Royce. Royce is actually a stock gambler, and after he goes broke, he forces Dora to give him a sum of money that has been placed in her charge by her employer. Royce loses the money and runs away, but Dora refuses to implicate him in the crime and is sent to prison for a year. After her release, Dora meets and marries Robert, who knows nothing of the affair, but when Royce appears and threatens to blackmail her, she confesses everything. A policeman arrives and shoots Royce, who exonerates Dora just before his death.

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By one of those strange mistakes of nature, a child is born to Elois, an actress. The advent of the child, Yvette. arouses in Elois the one fine trait in her nature, a tremendous mother-love. To keep the child clean and to protect it from the influence of her life and that of its dissolute father, becomes the one passion of her soul. The moment comes when it is borne upon her forcibly that the child must be sent away. She sends Yvette to a fashionable boarding school, instilling in the child's mind that she is a lady and the daughter of a wealthy widow, travelling extensively. From her life at boarding school, Yvette dreads her visits home where she has to suffer the passionate, suffocating embrace and dreary companionship of a perfumed woman, her mother. On one of these visits she meets her father, under conditions so strange that she was gradually led to believe they were dreams, as her mother said, and the scar her mother carried across her eye, came to her in a fall. Her schooling over, Yvette, on the threshold of the world, returns home. Her mother leaves her alone the first night and her father, deep in his cups, pays her a visit and, in his maudlin drunkenness, discloses the fact that her mother is an actress. Yvette, unbelieving, rushes to the theater, and from a seat in the balcony, sees her posing in the semi-nude. The veneer that has been added to Yvette in years of training, lays bare the coarse, primal grain. Without letting her mother know, she becomes a burlesque queen. Her mother returns one night to find her husband there and her daughter missing. In the midst of a terrific scene, in which she tries to make him tell where the girl is, Yvette enters, now a member of the painted world. The mother realizes that her daughter is gone, and does the inevitable, saves the girl's soul at the cost of her body; lays a double crime to the man who has caused all her misery, and the tragedy ends in his being cornered, powerless to explain.

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After his business partner, Paul Gresham, absconds with the company funds and books, Johnny Gamble's irrigation company folds, leaving him to pay his stockholders their claims. After parting with his last dollar, Johnny wins $15,000 on a long shot at the racetrack and meets the beautiful Constance Joy. When Johnny learns that Constance will inherit one million dollars if she weds Gresham at the end of six weeks, he decides to earn the same amount -- $5,000 an hour -- by that date and marry her himself. Despite Gresham's efforts to double-cross him, Johnny succeeds in earning all but $15,000 of the required million by the appointed time. With fifteen minutes left him, Johnny purchases a kiss from Constance for $15,000, thereby defeating Gresham and winning the girl he loves.

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Mary Ellen McKay, a country girl, comes to New York to become a singer. She stops at a furnished room house, and expends her savings on useless lessons, for her voice is only mediocre. Harry Weatherby is a disappointment of his millionaire father, who hopes to make him a captain of industry. Instead, Harry is a ne'er-do-well. While visiting Dr. Cameron, a friend of the family, he sees Mary Ellen across the way, and a flirtation starts. It eventually results in marriage. Harry is afraid to break the news to his stern father; his mother does, and he does. Enraged, Weatherby visits Mary and tries to buy her off. But she spurns his money, and he changes his tactics. He tells her he likes her, that he will give a party in honor of the marriage. He enlists the aid of Silk Harrington, who brings along a number of his smart tenderloin friends who pass themselves off as society. They influence her to drink, and soon she is acting very foolish. Harry arrives, sees her condition, and denounces her, thinking this is her true self. Harry's father leaves her a check for $10,000 before he goes, if she will promise never to see Harry again. She crumples the check in her hand, when the truth dawns upon her, and it is later picked up by Silk Harrington, who plans to use it. Mary goes home, thoroughly crushed and humiliated. She tries to commit suicide, but a friend. Kate Weld, a trained nurse, who lives across the hall, and Dr. Cameron save her life. Learning she is a stranger in New York, Dr. Cameron takes her to his country home to recuperate. Harry plunges into business to forget, and his father is happy. Mary recovers her health, but her faith is shattered. She wants to go out into the world now and have a good time. Dr. Cameron argues in vain. He decides to take her sightseeing. First he takes her to Cherry's, then to the Haymarket, where she sees the broken-down men and women. He tells her that is the price that must be paid. Lastly he takes her to his mission on the East Side. Here he tells her a story. He, too, was in love and lost. He tried everything in his pursuit of forgetfulness, and finally discovered solace for his sorrow in brightening the lives of others. Mary tells him she, too, wants to do this work. Meanwhile Harrington tries to pass the check. Harry is summoned to the bank and learns the truth through Harrington. He goes home and a big scene follows between him and his father. He eventually locates Mary. At first she does not want to forgive him, but she finally capitulates.

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The story concerns a mercenary and managing mother and her daughter, Agnes. The young lady loves a youthful doctor, but a match is frustrated by the mother, who seeks to marry the daughter to the highest bidder. The mother's extravagance ruins the father, who, being in ill health, succumbs to heart failure. With poverty staring them in the face, the mother takes Agnes abroad, finally forcing her into a marriage with an Australian millionaire. To do so, the mother intercepts all letters between Agnes and the young doctor, with the result that each feels that the other has ceased to care. The millionaire and his young wife, while on their honeymoon on his yacht, are shipwrecked. He is dealt a terrible blow on the head, and it completely destroys his memory. The young wife is saved and returns to America, while her husband is picked up by a French fisherman. His memory gone, he does not recall his previous existence in America. Agnes and the doctor renew their love affair and finally marry, excellent proof having been furnished that her former husband had drowned in the shipwreck. There is no opposition to the marriage now, as the mother also had perished in the catastrophe. Five years later, the young doctor has become a famous brain specialist. To him, Agnes' former husband comes for an operation in the hope of restoring his lost memory. The two men, never having met, fail to learn they are both married to the same woman. She discovers it, however, and with her happiness at stake, does not tell her surgeon-husband the truth, but attempts to dissuade him from operating on her first husband, fearful that the operation will prove successful and her first husband regain his lost memory and recognize her as his wife. The humanity in the surgeon surmounts his wife's pleas, but the patient fails to withstand the operation and Agnes' happiness is assured, despite the terrible situations which confronted her.

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At an early age, Trix, the daughter of Mrs. Raymond, the proprietress of a gambling resort, shows an inherited tendency to gambling. Mrs. Raymond sends her to a convent school, and. learning that Trix desires to become a nun, her mother gives her consent, provided she still cares for that life after spending a year in the social world. The girl is taken into the gay social set and learns the evil ways of the world. With a beginner's luck, she wins at the gaming table, until her mother, frightened, begs her to play no more. It is too late, the girl cannot stop, and when the inevitable turn of luck comes, she is plunged into debt. She calls upon Norris, an old sweetheart, for help, and after paying her debts, he begs her to marry him. She consents, but soon after the wedding breaks her promise by betting on a horse race. She continues gambling surreptitiously and loses money borrowed from Dovey, the old servant. Finally, she pawns a necklace given her by Norris. Dovey is accused of theft and lies to save her young mistress. She is arrested. Norris finds the pawn ticket, forces a confession from his almost insane wife and secures Dovey's release. Her mother sells her business to Henri De Voie, a gambler, and takes Trix away for a trip. Norris is later elected District Attorney, and resolves to stamp out gambling. Trix again finds herself in the terrible clutches of the gambling fever and, unknown to her husband, plays at De Voie's gambling house. Her mother finds her there one night and it so happens that Norris has decided to raid the place on the same evening. When he and his men burst into the place, they find both Trix and her mother. The proprietor tells Norris the truth, and in a quarrel, De Voie draws a revolver with the intention of shooting Norris. This is forestalled by Trix's mother, who, with one loving look at her daughter, atones for her sins by throwing herself between the two men and receiving the bullet in her own heart. Norris leads his sobbing wife away and she turns her back on the gaming table forever.

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Ann Gray annoys her narrow-minded New England aunt by writing stories on an old typewriter her father left her, and selling them to the "New York Ledger." Longing for attractions available only outside her small town, Ann elopes with visiting dissolute multi-millionaire Howard Van Kreel, who identifies himself as Robert Gordon, but she leaves when detectives from his wife interrupt their mock marriage ceremony. In New York, Ann distinguishes herself as a reporter for the "Ledger" and falls in love with managing editor Richard Manning. After the paper publishes a rumor about the Van Kreels' approaching divorce suit involving an unnamed co-respondent, Van Kreel threatens to sue for libel and ruin Manning's career unless the co-respondent is named. Manning sends Ann to investigate, and she discovers that she is the co-respondent. After some deliberation, Ann tells Manning the truth. Although he does not want to print the story, Ann, who reminds him of his record of publishing the truth, writes it. After Manning thrashes Van Kreel and makes him apologize to Ann, Manning has his assistant prepare an announcement of his upcoming marriage to Ann.

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Lucille Caruthers travels from her home in the South to New York, hoping for a career on the stage. She is aided in her dream by the theatre star Serge Ratakin, and she becomes a star in her own right. But Ratakin is jealous and possessive and attempts to sabotage her. After a violent conflict with Ratakin, Lucille believes she has killed him. But has she?

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When her husband Fred goes bankrupt, Lily Morton is forced to give up the trappings of wealth and move into a humble home while Fred attempts to fight his way back to prosperity. Resentful of her modest circumstances, Lily accepts her friend Marion Garland's offer to introduce her to Mrs. Farington, a woman who will pay handsomely for Lily's escort services. Lily goes to work for Mrs. Farington while her unsuspecting husband struggles to regain his former wealth. While managing an apartment house for one of his wealthy clients, Fred visits Mrs. Farington, a tenant, and, noticing a framed picture of Lily, asks to be introduced to the girl. Mrs. Farington arranges the rendezvous, and when Lily arrives, she is confronted by her enraged husband who chokes her to death. At this moment, Lily awakens from her nightmare, and chastened for her superficiality, begs Fred for forgiveness.

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Mrs. Fleming, in secret financial distress, counts upon a brilliant match for her daughter as a way out of her difficulty. Muriel, however, in ignorance of her mother's plight, is attached to Grayson Burton, but when they tell Mrs. Fleming of their love she becomes infuriated and refuses her consent on account of his poverty. Nevertheless, Burton and Muriel secretly marry and he leaves to seek his fortune in the gold fields of the Northwest. He has two partners, Slade, a renegade lawyer from New York, and Rollins, an Englishman. The men strike it rich and Graydon writes Muriel that he is coming to claim her. Slade attempts to rob his partners during the night and is surprised by Rollins, whom Slade kills with Burton's gun. Slade escapes, but returns with police, who arrest Burton on Slade's charge. Seeing that everything is against him in court, Burton escapes and seeks refuge in the wilderness of the mountains, where he becomes a hunted outlaw. Meanwhile the train on which Graydon was supposed to leave is wrecked, and Graydon is reported to be among the dead. Muriel is grief-stricken and decides to keep her secret. Later Philip Lewis, a wealthy lawyer, becomes infatuated with her, and her mother practically coerces the girl into marrying him because of his wealth, finally telling her of their predicament. Soon after her marriage her mother dies. Graydon meanwhile grows desperate and eventually escapes. He starts for New York to claim his wife. Muriel's husband has been appointed district attorney. While Muriel is attending an opera her spying maid steals her secret marriage certificate and sells it to Slade, who has returned to New York and resumed his blackmailing law practice. He writes Muriel a threatening letter and asks her to come to his home to see him that evening. Graydon arrives in New York and sees Slade. He plans to go to his home the same evening and force him to confess to the crime of which he is believed guilty. As he stands outside the French window he is amazed to see his wife there and Slade threatening her. Stepping into the room suddenly, he surprises both, and Slade confesses his guilt. While Muriel talks to Graydon, telling him of her life, Slade seizes a gun. In a fight that follows Muriel kills Slade, fearing her husband's life is in danger and intending only to frighten him by the shot. She escapes and Graydon assumes the blame. Lewis, her husband, prosecutes the case and determines to get a trace of the mysterious veiled woman who ran from the house the night of the murder. He gets a clue to his own wife and grills her until she confesses. Angered and jealous, he prosecutes Graydon knowing he is innocent. Muriel, conscious-stricken, starts for the courtroom to confess, but arrives there after he has been convicted. Lewis promises to pardon the man when made Governor if she will keep her silence. He is elected but refuses to keep his promise. At the last moment when Muriel is determined to kill herself, he weakens and issues the pardon. She then rejoins her true husband.