Sands of Time

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Dr. George M. MacGregor has devoted his life to science and eventually becomes a surgeon. Now well along the pathway of life, he finds time to woo and win Enid. Dr. Gordon Blake is Dr. MacGregor's assistant. Enid MacGregor longs for her husband's undivided attention and cannot understand why he must devote almost every minute of the day to professional pursuits. Theatrical and dinner engagements are repeatedly interrupted when Dr. MacGregor is called to minister to the sick. Enid turns to Dr. Blake for comfort. Dr. Blake is a "heartbreaker" and attracted by Enid's beauty, he cultivates her acquaintance. One night, after escorting her home from a ball, at which her husband failed to arrive, she agrees to leave her home. When Dr. MacGregor returns after an all-night vigil at a sick child's bedside, his heart is broken upon the discovery that his beloved wife has left him. He seeks comfort and solace in his surgical work. Time passes, and Enid MacGregor applies for and secures a decree of divorce from Dr. MacGregor. Living with Dr. Blake, she is overjoyed when she receives the certificate of legal separation, never dreaming but that Dr. Blake will marry her. However, the tares and the thistles of sin flourish for Enid, for she, to her horror, discovers that Dr. Blake is not willing that she should bear his name and appear in the eyes of the world as his wife. She leaves Dr. Blake and goes into the streets. She sinks lower and lower until finally she is obliged to pawn her wedding ring for a pittance to keep her body and soul together. Dr. Blake finds consolation in the charms of another woman. Dr. MacGregor only finds partial consolation for the loss of his beloved wife in his scientific pursuits. Late at night as he is repairing to his lonely home from the hospital, he passes Enid. He is unconscious of her presence. As he pauses upon the street corner, thinking again of former joyous days, the woman creeps up behind and kisses the hem of his overcoat. He passes on. Dr. Gordon Blake, returning home in his automobile from the theater where he has been entertaining a lady friend, hears a splash in the waters of the lake. Others hear the splash and hurry to the water's edge, and watch Enid's lifeless body being recovered from the waters. Blake is overcome as he gazes upon the lifeless form of the woman whom he has tempted to sin. Dr. MacGregor stands in the dissecting room, ready to make a scientific demonstration to the assembled medical students. A body covered with a sheet is rolled into the pit by attendants. Dr. MacGregor prepares to demonstrate an important surgical detail. He removes the sheet from the face of the lifeless form. He stands rigid with horror. It is his long-lost wife. With one despairing gesture, he dismisses the students and attendants, and they silently leave the room. He turns back to the lifeless form of the one he loved so well, and sinking beside the body he gives way to his grief.