The Path Forbidden (1914)

Twenty-five years ago, a frivolous, beautiful girl, Violet Dare, created havoc among the summer boarders at an Adirondack hotel. Two young chaps, Joe Brill and Jim Kent, were the favored ones, but Joe finally married her. Later Violet travels the "Path Forbidden," carousing with male friends, and is finally driven out by the husband, Joe Brill. She wishes to take one of the twin children, but the husband forbids. So she steals one little girl and takes her away. Years later we see the twins grown to womanhood. Neither know of the existence of the other. Pearl, the stolen one, is leading the life her mother led when alive. Lucy is the aid and comfort of the father, who, through unwise investments, loses his money, the shock of which causes a stroke and is removed to an asylum. Lucy then runs a country hotel. Pearl, the evil sister, has gained the love of an honorable young lawyer, Curtis Holmes, who will not marry her unless she gives up her forbidden life. She promises, and the wedding is announced. At the last moment, a dope and race track tout persuades her to go away with him. Traveling by auto, they have an accident, Pearl is carried to the hotel run by Lucy. The sisters notice the marked resemblance but think it merely a co-incidence. Curtis, missing Pearl, follows to the hotel, where he mistakes Lucy for Pearl, but soon finds out his error. He later finds in Lucy all that he had wished for in Pearl, so he transfers his affections. The father recovers and is brought home by Lucy. Shortly after the barn dance, Pearl disguises as Lucy and in lighting a cigarette sets fire to the place and in trying to escape sprains her ankle and faints from pain. The father, Joe Brill, taking his first stroll in the evening, notices the blaze and is told by the farmers that Lucy is in there. Without thought for himself, he carries Pearl out and takes her to the hotel. There he sees it is not Lucy and memory goes back to two small cradles. Asking her name and her mother's he finds his other daughter, Pearl, discovering a father, something she had never known, resolves to leave the "Path Forbidden" and be the comfort of her father who needs her now that Lucy has married Curtis.