- Episode 1: "The Tragedy" Mary Page, actress, is playing the leading role in "The King's Daughter," in rehearsal at the opening of the story. The show is secretly backed by David Pollock, man about town, who is in love with the girl. Mary is in love with Philip Langdon, a young lawyer. Pollock attends every rehearsal. He is really watching Mary. Philip Langdon, attorney-at-law, one day, keeps an appointment with Mary. He is talking to her on the stage when they are discovered by Pollock. Pollock is overcome with rage and orders the manager to show Langdon out. Langdon smilingly leaves the theater and waits outside. Mary goes to her dressing room. Pollock follows and attacks her. He is worsted in a fight by Langdon, who hears Mary's cries. On its premier, the play is declared a huge success and Mary attends a banquet given for the company. She is accompanied by Langdon, who waits in the hotel lobby. Pollock also goes to the hotel and engages a room, drinking heavily. He sends a bellboy to Mary with the message that Langdon wants to see her and she comes to the room. There she discovers herself trapped. Langdon, meanwhile, sees Mary leave the dining room and follows her. While he is trying to find out where she went, he hears a scream and a shot. He leads the crowd to Pollock's room, where he finds him dead. Mary is arrested.—Moving Picture World synopsis
- Episode 2: "The Trail" Mary Page is placed on trial for her life for the murder of David Pollock. She is defended by Philip Langdon. The first witness to go on the stand is the bellboy whom Pollock sent to summon Mary from the banquet table to his room. He tells the jury how Pollock had bribed him to tell Mary it was Mr. Langdon who wished to see her. The hotel detective is next to take the stand. He tells of the finding of Pollock's body with Mary in a dead faint beside it, and of the pistol which lay at her side. The theater carpenter's testimony is damaging to the State's evidence. Mary Page, the defendant, finally takes the stand. When asked why she took a pistol to the banquet, she explains that she intended to give it to Langdon. It was the pistol Langdon wrested from Pollock in their fight in her dressing room. After giving her testimony, Mary Page falls in a faint and court is adjourned.—Moving Picture World synopsis
- Episode 3: "The Web" The leading man in Mary Page's theatrical company has just created a sensation in the courtroom, where Mary is on trial charged with the murder of Dave Pollock. "Langdon was either in the room or at the door when Dave Pollock was murdered!" is the accusation made by the witness. The courtroom is quickly quieted and the charge seemingly is forgotten. Ruth Pollock, sister of the murdered man, takes the stand. Her startling testimony carries the spectators back to the time when Philip, Mary and Dave Pollock were young people together in a country town. Mary, it seems, had been engaged to Pollock. Her father, a heavy drinker, had forged Pollock's name to a check and to save her father from prosecution, although she loved Philip, she promised to marry Dave. The announcement was made at a dance. Philip, not knowing of the forgery, believed Mary had jilted him and went into the bar and began drinking. Mary tried to get him out of the place and as she stood there, her arms around Philip, Pollock appeared. Mary announced that she could marry no one but Langdon and Pollock, enraged, produced the check bearing the signature forged by Dan Page, Mary's father. Langdon, for the first time, realized the power Pollock had over Mary, and seized the check and destroyed it. The check proved to be only a copy and Pollock browbeats Mary into promising again to wed him. "But," Mary threatened Pollock, "you will regret this to the end of your life." Brandon, the reporter, who testified to the scene at the dance, swore that during the struggle he saw on Mary's shoulder finger prints that came and faded away in an uncanny manner. Brandon was another of the young people in Mary's home town who went to New York. He was in police headquarters the morning after the murder, discussing the mysterious affair when Mary Page, in evening gown, without hat or coat, was brought in by a policeman who had found her wandering in the street. As Brandon stood there and heard Mary murmuring incoherently again he saw on her shoulder those uncanny finger prints. As he approached Mary the door opened and Langdon entered. "I give myself up," said Mary to the sergeant and turned and fell into Langdon's arms.—Moving Picture World synopsis
- Episode 4: "The Mark" Mary Page is charged with the murder of Dave Pollock. Langdon loves Mary and is her attorney in the trial. Langdon has a chance to save his sweetheart by confessing the murder, but he ignores the opportunity. Insanity is Mary Page's defense. "If Mary Page murdered Dave Pollock," Langdon announces, "she did it while suffering from 'repressed psychosis.'" Then he brings witnesses who tell thrilling incidents of Mary's early life. Mary's father, Dan Page, was a drunkard. Because of a powerful pre-natal influence Mary always had a horror of liquor. At times of great mental stress, upon her left shoulder have appeared the shadowy imprints of heavy fingers, a strange phenomenon caused by the fact that before Mary was born Dan Page brutally attacked Mary's mother. Mary had loved Langdon almost as long as she could remember. Pollock, who lived in the same small town, wanted to wed Mary and Dan, because Pollock knew of shady transactions in Dan's career, favored Pollock's suit. In a drunken rage, in his home, Dan Page attacked Langdon with a hot poker. A glancing blow struck Mary on the forehead. She was rendered temporarily insane, and she fled into the wood. There Langdon found her and carried her home.—Moving Picture World synopsis
- Episode 5: "The Alienist" While a way out seems to have shown itself to Philip Langdon, unforeseen circumstances serve to lessen the advantage he imagined he possessed. The young attorney defending Mary Page, accused of murder of Dave Pollock, calls a specialist in brain disorder, a Dr. Foster, who testifies concerning the unusual circumstances surrounding his first acquaintance with the case. He describes how Mary Page, insane, had lost herself in a wood for a night and how, when found by her lover, Langdon, had been brought to his attention. He found her to be suffering from repressed psychosis, a stage of mind originating in a prenatal influence which caused her to lose her reason at the sight of intoxication. His operation on her and later meeting in New York, shortly before Dave Pollock spirited her away, were retold for the jury. During the course of the testimony of the alienist, Langdon is obviously worried concerning a paper which the prosecutor's assistant presents to his chief. "Serve it," Langdon hears him order. But before there is an opportunity for any development along this line a juror is stricken with heart trouble and court is adjourned. Mary Page goes back to her cell and Langdon, worried, wanders about and finds himself walking into the office of Daniels, the theater manager, head of the show in which Mary Page was appearing when Pollock, the "angel" of the production, interfered. A torn piece of paper catches his eye. He finds more and pieces together part of a note. It read: ''For any repetition of today's outrage you will answer to ME, even with your life. Daniels." Langdon becomes a changed man as he reads. The note has changed his whole program of defense.—Moving Picture World synopsis
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