The story
“Aline Harper brooded over her husband’s treatment of her brother Jim, until it was torture to her to stay under the same roof with Robert another hour. Jim, handsome, charming and good-for-nothing, always had had a strange effect upon his sister’s better judgment. She got him out of countless scrapes, each one worse than the last—until Harper refused to go on giving the young vagabond money and forbade him from the house. Aline blamed everything on Robert, and that night she left him, taking along Elizabeth, their five year old child. Harper was too proud to plead with her. He won his suit for separation on the ground of desertion, and the court awarded him the custody of the child. The day he was expecting Elizabeth, a telegram from Aline brought word that the child was dead. Torn with grief and yet unable to believe, he traced his wife to a country town upstate. But a search failed to reveal any traces of his little girl.
“The sight of her husband’s ill-concealed sorrow was more than Aline could endure. She followed him to the village inn, where he had gone to await the night train to New York. Hiding near his window on the upper porch, she was gathering courage to call him, when she heard someone push up the sash, and saw a man enter her husband’s room. Breathlessly creeping nearer, she saw him level his gun. Harper threw up his hands; then began emptying his pockets. He drew out the large German watch he had carried for years, and an ivory miniature of herself and Elizabeth, set in jewels. The glitter of the gems bewitched the burglar. He riveted his greedy gaze and in the same instant Harper sprang upon him, wresting the revolver from his grasp. Aline leaped back into the shadow as the thief, with a bound, dove through the window and dropped over the eaves of the porch. Harper sat with trembling fingers, clutching the miniature, devouring it with his eyes. He felt a touch on his arm. ‘Robert!’ It was Aline’s voice, strained and choked with tears. ‘She—is—not dead. I hid her—I couldn’t bear to give her up—.’ He was on his feet with a cry. He put his hand imploring in hers, like a blind man. Scarcely half an hour later they were kneeling side by side, their arms around the child.”
Summary from Reel Life · 27 June 1914
