The Stolen Triumph (1916)

Success and failure meet in the persons of Edwin Rowley and Stephen Hunt, college chums. Rowley has marked ability as a playwright, but he is a visionary, and has not the commercial instinct necessary to market his wares. Hunt is a prosperous theatrical manager. Hunt's wife is ambitious for him to be known not only as a manager but as a dramatist. She urges him to try his powers in that direction. He promises to try, and she tells a reporter, who calls for an interview, that her husband is engaged in writing a great play. An item to this effect appears in the paper. Rowley, meantime, has finished a play which is a masterpiece. Noticing the item in the paper, his wife suggests that he go to Hunt for advice about his play. Hunt welcomes the impecunious Rowley, who tells him of his struggles for recognition. Hunt says he will be glad to read the play. Rowley leaves his precious manuscript with him. Hunt makes him a loan to tide him over his immediate difficulties, and the money is spent at once for necessities for his wife and little boy, Edwin. Hunt takes Rowley's play home and upon reading it recognizes it as a work of genius. When he has finished reading it, overwhelmed by its gripping power, he is irresistibly tempted to steal the play and present it as his own, knowing that he is safeguarded by the fact that Rowley has no copy. He begins copying the manuscript, only changing the title. After anxious days of waiting to hear from Hunt, Rowley goes again to the manager's office to ask about bis play. Hunt tells him that he has rejected it and mailed the manuscript to him several days ago. The loss of the play accentuates Rowley's sense of utter failure. Having come to the last of his resources, he gets a job at addressing envelopes. His faithful wife falls ill as the result of starvation. Hunt engages a company and starts rehearsals of the stolen play. On the opening night Rowley buys a ticket and attends the performance. He recognizes the new play as the child of his own brain, creates a disturbance and is put out of the theater. Finding Hunt afterward he denounces him as a thief. He is threatened with arrest, and half-crazed, goes home to tell his wife the disheartening news. The shock kills her. Rowley, now entirely insane, jumps into the river. He is rescued by a passing boat, but his hat and coat are found, and he is reported drowned. Hunt reads of the supposed suicide, and confesses to his wife that the great play was not his, but Rowley's. She says the wrong must be righted, and she takes Rowley's son into their home to bring him up with their little girl, Alice. Rowley becomes a wanderer on the face of the earth, his mind a blank. As the years pass, Hunt tries to make reparation by giving Edwin every advantage. Edwin and Alice grow up into young manhood and womanhood, fall in love with each other and are betrothed. Hunt produces a play written by the missing man, to make belated amends for his misdeed, and Rowley seeing it announced, partially regains his reason. He reaches the Hunt home while the guests are toasting the bride and bridegroom. In response to the toast, Edwin begins reciting a poem, the work, as he tells them, of his gifted father. He falters in reciting it, and Rowley, his memory now completely returned, finishes it for him. The past is forgiven, and the playwright's reclining years are spent in peace and happiness.