The Gray of the Dawn

• 1910
• Other, Drama

It is concerned with a young "society" man who is engaged to a beautiful blind girl, but he deserts her for a queen of the demi-monde whom he meets at a ball in the tenderloin. He falls an immediate victim to this Sappho's charms, but she treats him with icy reserve, until he hands her a diamond necklace - then she thaws quite a bit and asks him to call around. Pretty soon her passion rises to the same temperature as his; the flame of love becomes so hot indeed that she is purified and refined by it; and when he wants her to marry him, she refuses, because her new-born conscience won't let her steal him away from the pure and trusting blind girl. Then he starts to shoot himself, but she stays his hand, and, relenting, tells him to go and get the minister, which he does. But while he is gone her conscience gets busy again and simply won't let her marry him; on the other hand, he will commit suicide if she doesn't; so in order to solve the awful dilemma, she commits suicide herself. This happens in the gray of the dawn, so we are spared the ghastly details; but when the lover, with the minister, comes in and turns on the light, we see her dead body draped over the center table with the face hanging down toward the audience.