The Vision of Giuseppe Giusti: Decoding The Black Envelope

Hard pressed for funds in his campaign for Mayor, Jim Creelman does not know where to turn, but Olga Bateman, an actress, who has fallen deeply in love with the handsome politician, offers to loan him twenty thousand dollars to insure his election, hoping that in the end he will marry her. He makes good use of the funds and his campaign is carried to a successful termination. A short time afterwards, however, he meets Miss Syble Chatfield, the fiancée of Estaban DeBussy, the editor in chief of the leading daily paper, and falls desperately in love with her. He wins her away from DeBussy and they are married. In the midst of their honeymoon they are surprised by the announcement in the paper of the loan made to Creelman by the actress Olga, and never repaid, when, as a matter of fact, Jim Creelman repaid the money shortly after his election and obtained a receipt for it. Creelman tells his wife of his old affair with Olga. His wife, believing in his integrity and anxious to help him in any way to defeat the blackmailing scheme to discredit him before the town, helps him to search for the receipt, which had been placed in a black envelope, but they find that it has been stolen from his desk. The revengeful suitor, DeBussy, meets the faithful wife and tells her that the receipt has come into his possession and that he will give it to her if she will come to his house that night. To save her husband's honor she goes, and when she obtains the receipt, in order to preserve her husband's good name, she kills her suitor, after a struggle. Overcome with grief at the unjust suspicions of her husband, and his failure to believe her story, she kills herself as soon as he leaves the house.