The Strength of the Weak (1916)

Pauline D'Arcy just emerging from girlhood, meets and is attracted by a man many years her senior whom she knows by the name of Abbott. Abbott fascinates the inexperienced girl and makes her his mistress. Endowed with a keen desire for knowledge, Pauline has yielded herself, partly influenced by his promises that she shall have an education. He has promised to send her to the University, assist her to establish herself in a literary career, and then marry her. Pauline, accordingly enters a university for women. She becomes a favorite and develops her literary talent so that as graduation approaches, she has already completed a novel founded on her own experience. It is accepted and published anonymously, quickly becomes a "best seller" and everyone is eager to learn the identity of the author. The success of her book has made her financially independent and when, on her graduation day, Abbott proposes to take her away with him, she rebels and begs him to go his way and let her go hers. Pauline meets a young man named Richard Adams, and an affection quickly ripens into love. They are both invited to a house party given by Mrs. Dare. During the party, Richard Adams presses his suit, but Pauline gives him little encouragement, for her secret restrains her. A rival for her favor develops in Kitty's brother, Tom Dare. Tom has found out that Pauline wrote the novel that has caused such a sensation and shrewdly suspects that she is the heroine of her own book. He tries to force Pauline into illicit relations with him by threatening disclosure of her story to the assembled guests. She defies him, and that night in the presence of all the guests, Tom makes the public accusation. Driven to admit the authorship of the book, Pauline, nevertheless, defends, in a spirited speech, a woman's right to redeem herself and make a worthy future out of an unfortunate past. The guests are divided between admiration and horror when Richard Adams comes to the rescue and turns the tide into a complete triumph for Pauline, by stating they are going to marry. Loving him as she does, Pauline has not the heart to draw back, but she feels that she cannot allow him to marry her until he knows all the truth. When in an agonizing confession, she lays bare her soul and tells Richard of her trials, he takes her in his arms, tells her that he honors her truth and nobility and is more than ever determined to make her his wife. When Mr. Abbott, her former lover appears and demands an interview, Pauline faces him fiercely and demands why he returns to trouble her. She spurns him and tells him she is about to marry a man whom she loves. He threatens to find him out and reveal her past. She tells him that has already been done. In the final scene the men come face to face and Pauline discovers for the first time that they are father and son. In the original Pauline kills herself; in the film Pauline and Richard "fade out" in fond embrace.