As Ye Sow

Summary

A gilded-cage heiress weds a hayseed chameleon who swaps his homespun grin for gin-soaked snarls; the marriage curdles into nightly terror, the infant snatched as spoils. Adrift, the bride trails her own ghost to a salt-stung hamlet where her child lives under another name, only to be courted—ironically—by her spouse’s preacher-brother. The sea, that ancient moral referee, belches the presumed-dead abuser back ashore, resurrecting claims, jealousies, and the bottle. Two bullets later, the ledger of suffering balances: the sower reaps a storm of lead, the woman keeps the scars.

Synopsis

Dora, the daughter of a wealthy man, marries a good-looking young fellow from the country who has made an auspicious start in New York business life. Having won the girl by trickery, he proceeds to reveal a baseness of disposition that makes his young wife's life a terrible burden. He becomes a drunkard who abuses his wife and baby. Dora resents his cruelty and he robs her of the child, surreptitiously conveying it to his mother, then going away to sea on a fishing schooner. Bereft of husband and child, Dora falls prey to grief. Fresh suffering awaits her when news comes that her vicious young husband was drowned at sea. Concealing her identity, she makes her way to the fishing village where her husband was born, becomes his mother's paying guest, recognizes her child, and inspires the love of her husband's brother, now a clergyman. Dora's troubles are about to recommence with undiminished severity. Her husband married her under a false name, so she is in ignorance of his relatives, and in this state of ignorance she lends a willing ear to the wooing of the Rev. John St. John, her late husband's brother. The wedding ceremony is about to take place when a storm at sea arises, a ship in distress is sighted, there is a call to man the life-boat, and Dora's fiancé volunteers. Among the rescued is Dora's legal husband Frank, who re-asserts his claim to wife and child, grows jealous of his brother, and once more becomes a drunkard. One of his New York reprobate companions appears to demand money. There is a quarrel and both men are killed. The sinful man has reaped as he sowed, and like so many of his kind has made others suffer for his misdeeds, particularly the fond girl who married him.