The Pomp of Earth

• 1915
• Other, Drama

John Cole steals a million dollars from the bank of which he is president, and shifts the blame to his cashier, Don Porter, an innocent man, and Porter is sentenced to a long term of imprisonment. Edith Hilton and her mother, in a far western town have never heard of either John Cole or Don Porter, and know nothing of the effect their little affair will have on Edith's life. Cole goes to the city in which Edith lives, changes his name to Richard Walker, and starts regally to "spread" himself. Edith's mother, with a calculating eye to business, notes the coming of the millionaire, and tries to persuade her daughter to note also, as seriously as she. But Edith feels the call of Youth to Youth, and creates in the heart of Hugh Keene the hope of a great love. Keene is a young broker and does business for Walker. He scents a rival in his customer, and appropriates money not his to cut the dash of a richer suitor. His financial ventures break frightfully, and he is forced to "borrow" from the Sunset Club of which he is treasurer. Urged on by her mother's importunities and Walker's supplications. Ethel marries the millionaire. Walker, suspecting Keene, asks for an accounting, threatening arrest. Keene, knowing he can't pay, and crazed at his loss of Ethel, decides to kill Walker that night. But his plans are spoiled by Don Porter, who has escaped from the prison and made his way to the west. Porter does well the job Keene had laid out for himself. Asked by the Sunset Club for the funds in his possession, and seeing disgrace ahead, Keene finds the path of the bullet "the easiest way." Walker dead, Edith flies madly to Keene's office, turning naturally to him in her sorrow. She finds him seated in his office chair, a revolver at his feet, his face wreathed in a hideous smile. And as she looks at the limp, lifeless figure before her, she realizes that even the price of his honor did not buy for him that one balm for which he sold it. Who Pays?