Shattered Idols (1922)

Lieutenant Walter Hurst, called out with his regiment to quell an uprising against British rule, is killed. His wife has just given birth to a son, David, whose sickly and sensitive nature as he grows up earns him a reputation of cowardice. Upon his return to India after being educated in England, David learns of his mother's antipathy for him; overwrought, he has a vision of his father leading a group of Sikhs and follows him into the jungle to a Brahmin temple, where he witnesses the secret betrothal of Sarasvati to the idol of Siva the Destroyer. He rescues the girl from the temple, and much to his mother's humiliation he marries her and takes her to England, leaving behind his childhood love Diana. Sarasvati, unable to adjust to English society and customs when her husband is elected to Parliament, is persuaded by one of her countrymen to return to India; David follows and arrives on the eve of a fresh rebellion. Seeking his wife, he evades an attempt on his life, for Sarasvati receives the fatal blow and saves him.