The Price of Silence

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Helen Urmy and Ralph Kelton are in love, but there is parental opposition to Helen marrying a poor man when she has many wealthy suitors. Ralph starts to drive Helen to the home of her old nurse, in the country, and when a violent storm breaks early in the evening, they are compelled to find shelter in a wayside inn. The torrential rains continue, and Helen and Ralph are compelled to register as man and wife and occupy the only room that is available. Dr. Stafford, who lives opposite, is watching from his window when lightning strikes the hotel at midnight. He finds that Ralph has been electrocuted by the bolt which narrowly misses setting the building on fire. Helen, distracted when she realizes her position, confesses to Dr. Stafford that she is not Ralph's wife and he promises to shield her. In subsequent years Helen marries Oliver Urmy. They have a daughter, Aline, who falls in love with Billy Cupps, son of Helen's old nurse. One day Urmy brings Dr. Stafford into his home, introducing him as his college classmate. In Stafford's changed condition, due to the use of intoxicants and drugs, Helen does not recognize him, but the doctor clearly recalls where be saw Mrs. Urmy. When Aline returns from school Dr. Stafford falls in love with her and asks for her hand in marriage. The vast disparity in their ages makes the match seem ridiculous. Dr. Stafford recalls to Helen the incident of the lightning stroke, a secret she had safely kept, and as the price she must pay to prevent her exposure Stafford demands that she shall compel her daughter to marry him. Jenny Cupps, upon her deathbed, wires Helen that she must come to her old nurse. Helen receives a telegram that Aline and Billy Cupps have eloped and married. Helen proceeds upon her journey and finally learns the true parentage of Billy Cupps. The son Helen bore was entrusted to Jenny to rear as her own, Helen paying liberally for the boy's care and education. Some months after, Helen's son died, and to keep the revenues coming, Jenny had substituted her daughter's boy and reared him secretly as the child Helen had entrusted to her old nurse to rear and educate. The Billy Cupps, with whom Aline had just eloped, thus became acceptable as Helen's son-in-law. While Helen is away Oliver Urmy takes Dr. Stafford for an automobile ride. Stafford, under the influence of drugs, starts to make a disrespectful remark about Mrs. Urmy. Loosening his hold upon the steering wheel, Urmy grabs Stafford by the throat. The machine veers from the road, rolls down an embankment and Stafford is killed while Urmy escapes, miraculously, with slight injury. Helen returns home, after remaining at Jenny Cupps' bedside until the old nurse dies, and learns the news of Stafford's death. With her secret now safe in her own keeping and her daughter married, Helen lives her remaining days happy in the love of her husband with her unfortunate past obliterated.