Runaway June

Summary

In an audacious subversion of conventional melodramatic tropes, 'Runaway June' unfurls a meticulously constructed labyrinth of perceived marital discord and a woman's desperate quest for autonomy, only to reveal a meta-narrative far more profound. We are introduced to June Moore, a newlywed whose wedding day bliss is abruptly shattered by the chilling realization of financial subjugation, spurred by her husband Ned’s well-intentioned but stifling generosity. This epiphany compels her to flee their honeymoon train, embarking on a bewildering odyssey through New York and Bermuda. Her flight is a catalyst for an escalating cascade of misunderstandings, as she is pursued relentlessly by a bewildered Ned and the enigmatic Gilbert Blye, a figure whose perplexing interventions range from chivalrous assistance to suspicious manipulation. June’s attempts at self-sufficiency—from selling her watch to taking on governess and modeling roles—are continually thwarted, often by Blye’s clandestine machinations, leading her into a gambling den, a sanitarium, and even a pirate's lair. The narrative masterfully weaves a tapestry of misdirection, portraying June as a woman constantly on the run, caught between well-meaning but possessive men and the machinations of a shadowy cabal. This protracted chase, replete with car crashes, kidnappings, and jailbreaks, culminating in a daring escape from a liner and confrontations with river thieves and a quicksand-doomed artist, builds an almost unbearable tension of peril and pursuit. The grand reveal, however, shatters these illusions: June’s dramatic escapades, the relentless pursuits, and the overarching 'man-wife-money problem' that propelled her initial flight are, in fact, meticulously staged scenes within a motion picture production. June, far from being a hapless runaway, is the leading lady, meticulously crafting her artistic independence and fulfilling a contract with Blye’s film company, thereby achieving the very financial freedom she initially sought, albeit through an entirely unexpected medium. The film concludes with a celebratory dinner, where her bewildered husband and parents finally comprehend the sophisticated deception, allowing June to reclaim her interrupted honeymoon, now as a woman forged by a unique journey of self-actualization through art.

Synopsis

Episode 1: "The Runaway Bride" It is June Moore's wedding day, and the entire household is all confusion, excitement, and bustle, from June's pet collie Donnie to her father, uncomfortable and perspiring in his Prince Albert. Her bosom friend Iris Blethering, accompanied by her husband Bobbie, arrives to help June with her toilette, and a few moments later Ned Warner, the happy bridegroom, arrives. There is a short duration of nervous expectancy as Ned awaits the bride in the parlor, then June enters at the head of the bridal procession, and the ceremony commences. Just at the finish, Donnie, the collie, escaping from confinement in the woodshed, races into the parlor and June, regardless of her spotless white wedding gown, throws her arms about him. After the wedding June's wedding garment is hastily put aside and she dons a traveling suit, while Ned. seeking to avoid the pranks of the guests, steals out onto the porch to await her. Upstairs, Mrs. Moore tearfully embraces June, in the last sacred moment of parting, then presses a purse filled with money into her hands. June, surprised, pouts, "Why do I have to think of money on my wedding day?" but hurries out to Ned, who has been discovered by the guests and is being teased unmercifully. June and Ned make a dash for their limousine and escape amid a shower of rice. In a drawing room on the train rapidly bearing the happy bride and groom off on their honeymoon, June contentedly nestles in Ned's arms. By accident, June discovers that she has lost her purse, and when Ned hears her exclamation of dismay he laughingly produces his bulky "roll" with bluff heartiness, and quiets her fears. The porter, catching sight of Ned's roll, almost loses his eyes staring at it, and Ned, smiling, tips him a dollar bill. Ned tries to force some money into June's hand, but she draws away. In fancy she sees herself a beggar, helpless, dependent upon Ned's generosity to supply her every want and necessity, and the thought is repugnant to her. Ned leaves the drawing room to dress as June falls asleep. Her dreams are troubled, and continually picture the woman absolutely dependent for money upon the man. She wakes as the train jars to a stop at Tarnville, and in a daze rushes from the train, pausing long enough just to take her coat and hat, and stands trembling and confused on the platform as the train rushes away. Gilbert Blye was about to board the train when he saw June get off. He immediately drew back, and now, as June stands afraid, he stands aside, watching her sharply. June decides to return to New York, and finds the time of the next train on the bulletin board. Blye attempts to engage June in conversation, but is repulsed. Meanwhile, Ned discovers June's absence, and learns from a passenger that she left the train at Tarnville. Distracted, he gets off at the next station and takes an express back to New York, first learning over the telephone from the operator at Tarnville that June was seen to board the New York local, followed by a man with a black Vandyke. The operator tells Ned that the express sometimes passes the local just outside of New York. On the local, June finds she has no money, and sells her watch to an elderly couple. With this money, June pays her fare. The mysterious man with the black Vandyke buys the watch from the couple, and tenders it to June as a gift. She refuses to accept it, and he tells her that she may purchase it back when she is able. She takes the card he hands her, pockets it, and then refuses to notice him further. Smiling mysteriously, he takes the seat behind her and watches her. Just outside New York the express catches the local and they race along, side by side. Through a window, Ned sees the figure of June. Over her bends the black Vandyked man, assisting her on with her coat. In the station Ned frantically runs out to the street, just in time to have the door of Blye's taxi slammed in his face, and see June's taxi disappearing up the street. He jumps into a third taxi, and frantically orders his driver, "Follow them!" Episode 2: "The Man with the Black Vandyke" Through the busy streets of New York, Gilbert Blye, the mysterious man with the black Vandyke, pursues June, and in pursuit of both races the taxi of Ned Warner, June's distracted husband. In the maze of traffic, Blye loses track of June's taxi, and Ned, getting caught in a congestion of traffic, also loses the trail. To the home of Iris Blethering, her bosom friend, goes June for safety. Iris and her husband, Bobbie, cannot understand June's reason for leaving Ned, just because he offered her money, and poor June looks at Iris with a helpless gesture and half sobs, "I can't explain, it made me feel like a beggar taking alms." Still Iris does not appreciate June's viewpoint. At the club lives Cunningham, a comrade of Blye's, and, like him, a man of mystery. To Cunningham Blye goes and relates the account of his meeting with June, and shows the watch which June sold on the train. Ned Warner goes to the apartment that was to have been the home of his bride and himself. Meanwhile, Iris Blethering offers June some money, but June refuses it, and tells Iris that her purse is at home. Iris and Bobbie go to the Moore home to get June's purse, telling Mrs. Moore that June wired them to get her purse and forward it. Soon after the Bletherings leave, Ned calls at the Moore home, and June's parents are surprised to learn that June is not with him. They tell him of the Blethering's visit, and all hurry there, seeking a solution of the mystery. They arrive at the Blethering home, but Bobbie and Iris deny the presence of June. Ned, however, finds one of Blye's cards, and June's gloves, and furiously accuses the Bletherings of hiding both June and Blye. At Rectors Blye, Cunningham, Tommy Thomas, a girl companion of Blye, and several others form a merry party, drinking and dancing. The diners seek to arouse Tommy Thomas' jealousy by describing June's watch, which Blye has in his possession. Meantime, at the Blethering home, events have followed rapidly. While Ned and Bobbie are arguing in the hall downstairs, June escapes through a window. A few moments later Ned and the rest break into the room. There is no trace of June, so the next move is a visit to the Blye home, where Mrs. Blye is questioned. Mr. Moore indignantly demands, "I want my daughter." This arouses Mrs. Blye's suspicion. She calls up Cunningham's club and learns that she is with Blye at Rectors. Thereupon the party rushes to Rectors. Mrs. Blye bursts in, followed by the others, and catches her husband dancing with Tommy Thomas. She furiously demands, "Who is that woman?" but Blye flares up and refuses to answer her. Blye makes his way to the street and escapes in Cunningham's car, giving the chauffeur a mysterious address. June, meanwhile, has made her way to the Moore home and after petting her pet collie for a few moments, awakens Marie, her maid, collects her wardrobe together, and steals away with Marie. June and Marie get into a taxi at the Moore gate, and just drive away as Blye, in Cunningham's car, drives up, then follows in hot pursuit. A moment later Ned, and the rest, in two autos, drive up and are directed after Blye's car by Aunt Debby, the Moore's old colored servant. Through the darkness the pursued and pursuing autos race. Episode 3: "Discharged" In the preceding Installment, June, the runaway bride, escaped from her parents' home with Marie, her maid, and some of her wardrobe. Close in pursuit of June's taxi came Gilbert Blye, the man with the black Vandyke, and away in the rear followed Ned Warner, June's deserted husband, and several others. Speeding at a breakneck pace, Blye, in the Cunningham limousine, passes June's taxi, and then breaks up a bottle which he has in the car and drops the bits of broken glass to the roadway. The ruse works; the taxi has a blowout. Blye's car backs to the scene, and Blye gallantly offers June the use of his machine. After some hesitation, June accepts the offer, and has Marie take the clothes from the taxi and put them into the other car. The taxi is wheeled to the side of the road, to be out of the way, then the limousine drives off. Blye, in the car, pretends to just recognize June as the little girl he met on the train, and he feigns pleasant surprise. June, doubtful, wishes to buy her watch back immediately, but Blye tells her that he left it home. At his club, Blye alights and puts the car at June's service, but mysteriously whispers instructions to Scatti, the driver. Scatti nods, and in answer to June's orders to drive her to a boarding house, takes her to Mother Russell's, a mysterious house of gaiety and bright lights. But June decides that the place is too conspicuous, and gives Scatti the address of an obscure boarding house which she is familiar with. There they go, and June engages a room for herself and Marie. Scatti, grinning slyly, takes note of the place and drives away. Meanwhile, the cars containing Ned and his party pursuing June and Blye, encounter the glass-strewn section of the roadway and are delayed by blowouts, and hopelessly lose the trail. They finally come to the city and disperse to their various homes, Ned summoning private detectives to put on the case. Mrs. Blye reaches her home in time to see her husband going away with his effects, and, realizing that she is deserted, summons private detectives to watch her husband. Blye and Cunningham go to Mother Russell's, and there hold a conference with Tommy Thomas, showing her June's watch with her picture and name, Tommy sulks, but finally agrees to do their bidding. Tommy Thomas calls at June's boarding house on the following morning, tells that a friend of June's sent her to June about a position, and takes June to a department store and introduces her to the manageress of the gown department, whispering to her, "This is the girl Mr. Blye spoke about for the model." The woman smiles in approval as she looks at June, and immediately employs her. June grows interested in her work, parading before the wealthy customers, but through a prearranged plan of Cunningham, Blye and Tommy Thomas, she is discharged, charged with neglecting her duty, for, interested in an argument over money matters between a man and his wife, the eternal "money question" which was the cause of her running away from Ned, she neglects to heed Cunningham's request to be shown a gown. Dejected, she returns to her boarding house. Meanwhile, the private detectives of Ned and Mrs. Blye have been sadly mixing things up, and Ned, disgusted, goes for a walk. He sees Marie and tracks her to the boarding house. Blye has preceded him there and is in the hall. Marie, conscious that Ned is following her, rushes into the house. Ned is admitted in time to see Blye rushing up the stairway, but the man of mystery eludes Ned and leaves the house, close on June's trail, leaving Ned frantic and heartbroken. Episode 4 "The New Governess" June's headquarters at Mrs. Beales' boarding-house became known to both Ned Warner and Gilbert BIye. Fortunately June realizes this. Leaving Marie to gather up their belongings, the runaway bride hurries to a nearby hotel, telling her maid to follow. She is pursued at a safe distance by Blye. As June enters the Hotel Daniel "Shanks" McGee, the newsboy in the lobby, scents "detecatiff" stuff. Later, when both Blye and Ned in turn appear, the latter demanding to see her, the boy decides to use his wits in the game at the first opportunity. Meanwhile, the bell-boy also has been catching on to things. So he goes up to June's room and suggests his mother's home as a safe retreat. June gladly accepts the plan, and with the bell-boy's help she escapes through the servants' entrance. Below stairs Ned's and Mrs. Blye's detectives have insulted a Frenchman with a black Vandyke, whom they mistake for Gilbert Blye. After they are gone "Shanks" McGee, seeing Blye himself enter the hotel with "Tommy" Thomas on his arm, puts two and two together, tears after the detectives and tells them that the man they are seeking is now in the lobby. But Blye, though taken by surprise, is more than a match for the detectives. With three well-directed piston-like blows he sends them sprawling, and then he and "Tommy" Thomas, having learned of June's escape, leave the place. June, meanwhile, through an employment agency has found a position as governess to little Dolly Wiles. She is very happily occupied until Mr. Wiles, through the extravagance of Mrs. Wiles, who is a pretty, vapid, money-loving sort of wife, goes bankrupt. Then she returns to the employment agency. Entering, she does not see Gilbert Blye, who quickly steps behind a screen. The address given her by the manageress is one which the man with the black Vandyke has handed to the woman with explicit instructions only five minutes previously. Episode 5: "A Woman in Trouble" In the preceding installment June, the runaway bride, was sent to a mysterious house by an employment agency, and followed by Gilbert Blye, the man with the black Vandyke. June is shown into what was apparently once the parlor of a gambling house, but is now fitted up as an office. Blye and the keeper of the house peer smilingly at her through the hall door. Then the keeper enters, and after a short chat with June, hires her. Aunt Debby, the Moore's cook, goes marketing, and meets Marie, June's maid, who is also marketing. There is a scene in the market, Marie denying that she knows Aunt Debby. But the old servant will not easily be put off, and she wrestles with Marie, knocks her down, and sits on her. Several policemen, hearing the commotion, enter, and arrest Aunt Debby. The patrol is summoned, but the policemen, to their great chagrin, find that the door of the wagon is not of ample size to permit of the free passage of Aunt Debby's corpulent frame. Marie does not like to see Aunt Debby arrested, and when Officer Dowd. Marie's friend, appears, she whispers to him, and he gets the other officers to let Aunt Debby go free. Aunt Debby hurries to Ned, the deserted husband of June, and he, summoning his detectives, rushes to the market to endeavor to take up Marie's trial, but to no avail. June is instructed in her duties by the keeper, and is horrified when it dawns upon her that the place is a gambling establishment. Mrs. Gwen Perry, a patron of the place, finds herself hopelessly in debt, and her husband will not give her any money over her allowance. The keeper duns her for her debt, but Mrs. Perry cannot pay. The keeper then calls up Mr. Perry, but he, furious, threatens to raid the place. The keeper informs Blye of the threat, and one of the girl employees is sent to the basement to be in readiness to start a fire, if a raid takes place. Mr. Perry enters, and has an argument with the keeper, at length telling him to call Mrs. Perry. It is evident that he is through with his wife, but June, summoning her courage, takes an active interest in this new phase of the eternal money question which caused her to leave Ned, and pleads with Mr. Perry. He at length relents, but Mrs. Perry, entering the room and seeing him, is seized with sudden panic, flees, and is about to shoot herself, when June intervenes. Mr. Perry takes her into his arms, and there is a happy reconciliation. At this moment some policemen appear at the door, and the fire is started. A mad rush from the house follows, June escaping with the rest in the confusion. But Blye picks up her trail, and follows her through the streets. Ned, on a streetcar, sees June running along, and Blye pursuing her, and he hastily alights from the car and pursues. Episode 6: "The Siege of the House of O'Keefe" As June is fleeing from the gambling house, she is glimpsed by Ned from a streetcar. But the conductor refuses to stop in the middle of the block, and by the time Warner has alighted and rushed back, the runaway bride is nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile she has reached in safety the home of Mrs. O'Keefe, the hotel bellboy's mother, and her protector. Mrs. O'Keefe, being the widow of the most popular patrolman on New York's police force, instructs some of her departed husband's friends, whose beats are in that neighborhood, that Marie and June are good friends of hers, who do not wish to be found. When Blye and Warner appear in the vicinity and question the policemen about a young girl, they are deliberately sent on a wild goose chase. But, as so often before, Blye at length calls upon Tommy Thomas. She drives around to the neighborhood, in which the man with the black Vandyke has reason to believe his quarry is in hiding, and is lucky enough to see June coming out of Mrs. O'Keefe's. Already Tommy Thomas has arranged with a Mrs. Villard, who wants a companion, to let her bring June to her. She invites the runaway bride into her car, and they drive to an employment agency with which Tommy Thomas has had an understanding. The farce is put through, and June is taken to the magnificent estate of Mrs. Villard, a young and handsome woman of clearly good intentions. That same evening June has an adventure. She overhears some tenants of Mrs. Villard's quarreling, and hurries over to the squalid home of the Groggs. She finds Groggs in a drunken frenzy, his wife beside herself, hurling pots and pans. And then June lets herself go and her fiery denunciation of the drunkard soon sobers Groggs. He promises to reform, and the runaway bride realizes that there was but another symptom of the man-wife-money problem, which so besets her. Returning to Mr. Villard's house to dinner, June meets Charles Cunningham. Tommy Thomas also is one of the guests. Once, she fancies, she sees through the velvet curtains of the room the somber visage of the man with black Vandyke. Episode 7: "The Tormentors" June returns to Mrs. O'Keefe's for her clothing and Marie. Scarcely have they taken their farewells of the widow when Ned Warner, the Moores and the Bletherings arrive to find the detectives and the policemen battling on the stoop, and no sign of the runaway bride. Meanwhile the two girls have driven to Mrs. Villard's. Unknown to them, Gilbert Blye is in the house. He observes their arrival with satisfaction, and as soon as the girls have gone upstairs he instructs their hostess and leaves. That afternoon Mrs. Villard tells June that they are going downtown. She takes her unsuspecting companion to Garrigue and Co., marine brokers. There she explains to her that Mr. Blye is planning a yachting trip to southern waters and that he has invited them to join the party. This announcement throws June into a panic. She refuses to go. Presently Blye, Cunningham and Edwards reach the office, Tommy Thomas with them. All their efforts to persuade June, however, are vain. Across the court, Bobby Blethering from his office window sees June arguing with the man with the black Vandyke. He phones Ned. Before the distraught bridegroom can get there, June and Mrs. Villard are fleeing in a taxi, pursued by Blye and his companions in Cunningham's limousine. Episode 8: "Her Enemies" The taxi, in which June and Mrs. Villard were escaping kept steadily ahead of Cunningham's car. Suddenly the conspirators saw it plunge across a sidewalk and down a steep embankment. They sped to overtake the demolished machine. Blye and Cunningham went to the rescue of June. Edwards and Tommy Thomas helped Mrs. Villard. Both women were unconscious and were carried to a sanitarium, where a Dr. Remert took them in charge. When June recovered she found a confidante in Mary, the head nurse. Finding that she was suffering mainly from shock, her spirits revived, began to talk with the nurse about the possibility of her entering Mary's vocation. Dr. Remert approved and promised to speak to the chief about June. It developed that "the chief" was none other than Gilbert Blye. June refused to have anything to do with the hospital and was persuaded to return home with Mrs. Villard, as her companion. Meanwhile, Ned's detective, Burton, had been putting in some good work. He had traced Blve to his club, seen him in conference with Mr. Villard, who suddenly returned to New York, and the result was that on the evening the Villard party was motoring home Ned Warner lay in wait near the estate. Just as he would have intercepted the automobile in which rode Blye, June, Mrs. Villard and the others, two pairs of strong arms reached out and seized him. The motor rushed past. Episode 9: "Kidnapped" Concealed in the shrubbery outside of the Villard home, Ned rises to snatch his bride from the man with the black Van Dyke when he is seized by the Villard chauffeur and the gardener and Marie, June's maid. He is quickly bound and gagged and thrown into the Villard garage. He struggles to free himself as he sees June chatting sociably with Gilbert Blye and Orin Cunningham. Bert Villard, husband of June's employer, arrives unexpectedly from abroad. Ned's captors indulge in a card game and drinking bout which enables him to wriggle free from his bonds and escape when they sink into a drunken stupor. Meanwhile June has finally consented to go on the proposed yachting trip. Marie, stricken with remorse over Ned's fate, tries to tell June of his capture, but cannot. Mrs. Villard's husband, finding June alone, seizes her in a wild embrace and covers her face with kisses. "Bouncer," June's faithful collie, comes to the rescue, fells Villard, bites him and would kill him but for June's interference. She makes Villard promise not to go on the yachting trip, the price of her silence to his wife. Ned escapes just in time to see June driving away with the gay yachting party, tracing them to a restaurant, where June is forced from the room, while she is trying to go to Ned, afterward being rapidly conveyed on a motorboat to a large yacht lying in the river. Episode 10: "Trapped on a Liner" Gilbert Blye and his party go aboard the steamer which they have chartered for the trip to Bermuda. Ned Warner and Burton, his detective, also board the boat. They practice the policy of watchful waiting. Soon Ned is informed by Burton that June is sitting alone on the lower deck. He hurries below. Suddenly Blye, from where he is sitting, sees the runaway bride in her husband's arms. He goes to the captain and tells him that a crazy man has attacked one of the ladies of his party. The next thing Ned knows he is struggling in the grasp of two husky sailors. June is in hysterics. Ned, locked in his stateroom, is unable to escape until just before the landing in Hamilton Harbor, Bermuda. Here he is seized by two sailors. The three men fight furiously. Finally Warner is backed up against the rail. and then, by accident, pushed overboard. A practiced swimmer, he strikes out toward a small fishing craft, calling for help. The fishermen take him aboard. When first they hear that Ned is over the side of the ship, June and Blye are about equally horror-stricken. The news of his rescue, however, calms them both. June is inspired to refuse to land, but Blye compels her to do so. Burton, following them, learns the name of their yacht and their route. This he confides to Ned as soon as that unfortunate young man sets foot on the pier. But how are they to board the yacht? Episode 11: "In the Clutch of the River Thieves" On arriving at Bermuda, June and Blye's party leave the steamer for Blye's yacht, but Blye, the man with the black Van Dyke, returns to the dock, where he encounters Ned, the deserted husband, who was rescued by fishermen after jumping off the steamer to avoid capture. Ned violently attacks him and is getting the better of him when the local police arrest Ned on Blye's statement that he is a dangerous maniac and place him in a small jail near the water. June escapes from the yacht at night in a tender and rows for the shore, but is discovered and pursued by the yachting party. Fearful of capture, June signals a sailboat, which is manned by an old Italian, Giovanni, who takes her aboard. He points out an old wreck and says he was wrecked there twenty years ago. She reminds him of Marietta, back in Italy. He tells her the story of Marietta and her two lovers, how she favored Tony, the one who spent the most money on her. Tony quarreled with Beppo, another of Marietta's admirers, and in a duel with knives succeeded in killing him, after which he ran away with Marietta. Blye's yacht gives chase under full sail, and Ned, who has escaped from jail, hires a motorboat and also gives chase. Giovanni steers his boat through a narrow opening into an inlet, where Blye's yacht cannot follow, whereupon Blye produces a pistol and shoots Giovanni. June grasps the helm and runs the boat into the inlet with the aid of Giovanni's negro assistant and lands near a house where some river pirates live. Among them are Tony and Marietta. They quarrel over a division of their spoils, in which one of the pirates stabs Tony and escapes. As June rushes up, she, Marietta and the wounded Tony are all struck with the resemblance between the two women. Before he dies Tony tells June where to find his buried treasure for Marietta and she undertakes to do so. The other pirates pursue her. Marietta follows June to help her and as they get the treasure, the two pirates attack them. Ned rescues the two girls and Marietta starts after them, knife in hand, on vengeance bent. As they turn on her, Blye and his party interfere and save her, and learning from her of June's whereabouts, Blye arrives just in time to snatch June away from Ned and make a prisoner of him. Episode 12: "The Spirit of the Marsh" Ned, after a sharp, heroic struggle with Blye's hirelings, was borne off to one of the strongly barred cabins of the yacht. The next day he was brought, like a prisoner before a judge, into the presence of the man with the black Vandyke, who promised the unhappy young husband that if he would leave June unmolested for five days, at the end of that time he should have her back safe and sound. Ned gulped and pledged his word. Then he was set free, to go and come as he pleased. Meanwhile, June had made the acquaintance of Durban, the artist, who, with his rich wife, had taken a handsome villa in Bermuda for the winter. He made no secret of the fact that he had married this woman for her money. Also, in a cottage apart, he supported a pretty little model, Mimi, upon whom, for the time being, he had settled his changeable affections. The day before, Durban had had a rather upsetting scene with Amy, a girl of the neighborhood, whom he had engaged to pose for a picture that was not in Mimi's line. Because of this he was all the more willing to allow himself to be attracted to June; in her he could forget his recent chagrin. One morning early he chanced to come upon June as she stood drinking in the sun and air on the beach, and induced her to pose. Suddenly she found herself struggling in his close embrace. She fought herself free and fled. Realizing presently that he no longer was following her, she turned and saw that he had been caught in the quicksands. Nothing more awful than the end of this self-indulgent man ever was witnessed by the runaway bride. Episode 13: "Trapped" June, returning to the hotel with Gilbert Blye, immediately after witnessing the tragic end of Durban, the artist, is conscious that the man with the black Vandyke has become suddenly a dangerous companion. She flees from the protecting arm with which he has encircled her all too tightly, and running down to the shore, takes refuge under a net in a fishing boat. Blye loses track of her. But, from a distance, Ned Warner witnesses the incident, also the arrival of a strange fellow, long-haired and in rags, who jumps into June's boat and pushes off with her to sea. Hiring two sailors to go with him, he gets a small craft and gives pursuit. Blye also is soon scouring the bay. Meanwhile, June struggles with her boatman, who turns out to be a half-witted barbarian, and the boat is capsized. She is rescued by a girl, attired like a dryad, who takes her to an island, where Hierophant, a charlatan mystic, celebrates mild orgies. June joins the dance of his captive maidens. Some time later Hierophant attempts to put the newcomer through an initiation dance of a kind which outrages her modesty, and with the help of one of the other girls, she flees the island. She succeeds in rejoining Ned on the bay and he boards her raft. But the man with the black Vandyke also comes alongside. He fells Ned unconscious, and dragging the fainting June into his boat, heads his rapidly moving craft for shore. Episode 14: "In the Grip of Poverty" June is taken from her husband on the raft and carried away in a boat by Gilbert Blye. On the mainland, however, they are met by Gascon, the leader of a band of Apaches. On seeing the runaway bride, Gascon signals to his confederates, two men and two women, whom he instructs to follow and capture June. The thing is accomplished and June is compelled to put on the Apache dress and perfect herself in their famous dance. Meanwhile, Marie, the sweetheart of Pierre, one of the band, is driven by jealousy of the pretty newcomer to betray the Apache quarter to the commandant of the military guard. A fierce fight ensues between the Parisian thieves and the local soldiery in which the former are killed and routed. Pierre pursues Marie to the top of a cliff. He realizes that she has turned traitor. In a frenzy of rage he flings the girl over the crag into the sea. June is found, hiding among the rocks, by Gilbert Blye. He leads her safely away. Episode 15: "At Last, My Love" June leaves Bermuda with Blye and his associates. She is followed by Ned, who boards the same boat, unobserved. Once at sea, Ned tries to devise some plan for rescuing June from Blye. But in the end he realizes that he is powerless against Blye. He remembers his previous experience when he was held a prisoner on the boat as a maniac and determines to use cunning. He is certain that Blye knows he is aboard, and so hides in the hold. Blye discovers his presence on the steamer and bribes sailors to close the hatch. Ned is thus imprisoned and is unable to interfere for the remainder of the voyage. The steamer reaches New York and Blye gives instructions for the release of Ned. Then with June and the rest of the party, Blye goes ashore. As June, Blye and the others of the Blye party leave the pier and are about to enter their autos, Bill Wolf, Mrs. BIye's detective, rushes up. Blye knocks Wolf down and drives away. Wolf follows in a taxicab. He trails the entire party to a large building whose roof and some of whose sides are of glass. He then hurries to report to Mrs. Blye. When Ned comes out of the hold he is able to find no trace of June or Blye. Thinking that he may gain some information at Mrs. BIye's house he hurries there. He arrives in time to hear Bill Wolf tell Mrs. Blye of the large glass building and BIye's presence there. Mrs. Blye and Wolf start for the large building while Ned follows in another machine. On the way Ned sends a telegram to Mr. and Mrs. Moore, June's parents, explaining the situation. The Moores start at once to assist Ned in his rescue of June. Ned finds a sturdy doorkeeper at the large glass building and fights with him to get in. Detective Wolf, who arrives on the scene with Mrs. Blye, assists Ned in his struggle with the doorkeeper. The two overpower the guardian of the entrance and force their way into the hallway of the building. Ned finds a locked door at the end of the hallway barring further progress. Peering through an opening of the door Ned sees that June, Blye and others are in the room. As Ned watches, June, Blye and his associates go into another room. Ned breaks down the door, but finds that the only egress, however, is through another barred door. The Moores arrive on the scene in time to see Ned breaking down the second door. Ned, the Moores, Mrs. Blye and Bill Wolf force their way into the presence of Blye, June and the others. The Blye party is grouped about Edwards, who is seated at a small table and is handling money to the various members of the group, in turn. As Edwards hands some money to June, Ned seizes Blye. Cunningham and the other men of the party separate the two and then explain the situation to Ned. The building in which they are, Blye tells Ned, is a moving picture studio. When June left her husband in order not to be financially dependent upon him she joined the motion picture company of Blye. The many strange adventures through which she passes and which mystifies the Moores and Ned, Blye explains, were scenes in various motion picture dramas in which June was leading woman. June has now won her independence and her contract with Blye has been fulfilled. Edwards is paymaster and was paying salaries. Ned is at last convinced and makes very humble apology to June. June forgives him and introduces him formally to Blye and the other members of the company. Everybody joins in a big farewell dinner to June and Ned. The situation has been explained to Mrs. Blye and she forgives her husband for his seeming disloyalty. June and Ned are toasted at the dinner and at its end resume their, interrupted honeymoon. END