The story
“Hannah is a charming hostess—but in private she is a shrewish wife. Felix, a musical genius, falls in love with Hannah. Believing her to be mild and lovely, he grows to detest her husband. One day, Felix sees Henry douse his wife in a puddle of muddy water. Little does the musician realize that Henry has been ordered by his spouse to carry her across the puddle, and that the fall was purely accidental. He hurries to Hannah’s home and implores her to elope with him. She gently refuses his pleadings, and the broken-hearted musician, helping himself to Hannah’s clothesline, resolves romantically to die. He enters a vacant house and is on he point of throwing the rope over a beam, when he sees another man in the act of doing the same. Walking over to remonstrate with him, Felix recognizes Henry. ‘I want to die,’ says Felix, ‘because I cannot marry your wife.’ Henry stares aghast. ‘I want to die,’ he confesses, ‘because I did marry her.’ Then the unhappy husband unbosoms himself. Felix persuades him not to commit suicide, for, in that case, he fears he may inherit the widow. That evening Felix refuses Hannah’s invitation to dinner by telling her that he is starting for Borneo in half an hour. Her vanity wounded by the musician’s sudden disappearance, Hannah treats henpecked Henry with more consideration.”
Summary from Reel Life · 20 November 1915
