The Zero Hour (1918)

Twin sisters Fanny and Evelyn Craig are unaware that their stepfather, Micah Parrish, is a fake spiritualist until his lack of money forces them to return home from boarding school. Evelyn eagerly assists Parrish and his even more unscrupulous partner, Esau Brand, while Fanny, disgusted, leaves home to become lawyer Bruce Taunton's secretary. Following the death of his mother at a séance, Bruce vows to place the city's fake clairvoyants behind bars, but when Fanny is killed on the day she was to marry Bruce, he becomes unbalanced. Seeing an opportunity to stop the lawyer's crusade, Brand forces the reluctant Evelyn to appear to Bruce each evening as Fanny's spirit, but his threat of shooting himself so that he might join her causes her to reveal the deception. Brand finally is released, while Bruce finds consolation in Evelyn's love.