The Fires of Conscience (1912)
Mabel Winter, engaged to Howard Wallis, is admired very much by Count de Gironde, who also admires her father's millions. Elizabeth Deacon is in love with Howard, and she and the Count get their heads together to devise some way in which they can separate the lovers. Their chance comes when Howard is called away from a ball to attend his mother who is quite ill. He leaves a note for Mabel which is stolen and destroyed by the Count. Elizabeth tells Mabel that Howard has been paying her attention, and the girl, hurt by her sweetheart's apparent neglect, believes her. Howard writes repeatedly to Mabel, but his letters are all secured by the Count who bribes the butler to attend to his end. Mabel, thinking Howard has fallen in love with Elizabeth, accepts the Count's proposal and they are married. Meanwhile Howard, grieved over not hearing from Mabel, reads of her marriage in the society columns of the papers and is heartbroken. He turns for consolation to the gambling tables. Sometime later, Mabel's father loses his fortune in Wall Street, and the Count, tired of his wife now that her money is gone, taunts her. In a quarrel between the Count and Elizabeth, Mabel learns the truth about her estrangement from Howard and is bitterly grieved. She parts from her husband. Five years later Mabel lives with her little son Bobby in a small tenement. The boy sells papers on the streets sometimes to help his mother. On a cold night, the little chap starts out. He is not able to make a penny, and tired out and discouraged he sinks down on the steps of a large church and falls asleep. A woman sees the little lad and drops a ten dollar gold piece in his hand. Howard, who has been playing roulette at a nearby gambling house, is refused further credit and leaves the place angrily. As he passes the church he sees the child and notes the money in his hand. As he picks up the gold piece he hears the church clock chiming the hour; it is ten o'clock, the tenth of the month, and this oddly bestowed money is a ten dollar piece. He will borrow it from the boy for a while and play it on number ten. He takes the money to the gambling house and flings it down on ten. Ten wins, and wins again! But the man's conscience troubles him; he sees the little lad starving and dying on the street. Breaking the bank he pockets a small fortune and rushes back to the church. Bobby lies still and cold. Howard gathers him into his arms and carries him into the church where he is given over to the care of a kindly priest, Before the beautiful Easter altar, Howard confesses his sin to the priest, and taking out his money he scatters it upon the altar. It is tainted gold and he does not want it; it has cost the little boy's life. But Bobby is not dead, he has merely fainted from hunger. Howard takes the little fellow into his arms. Bobby tells his address and a taxi is called. It stops before the poor tenement and Howard carries the child in to its anxious mother who has been nearly crazed at his long absence. But when he sees that it is Mabel his joy knows no bounds. Mabel shows him an old paper telling of the Count's death, by duel, in Paris, and Howard knows that he has come into his own at last.
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| Filmmakers | Role |
|---|---|
| Oscar Apfel | Director |
| Marion Brooks | Writer |
| Cast | Role |
|---|---|
| Irving Cummings | |
| Gertrude Robinson | |
| Edgena De Lespine | |
| James Ashley |
