Stirring melodrama from Cecil Hepworth features a courtroom battle and uses the English countryside less than other Hepworth films like TANSY, HELEN OF FOUR GATES, and COMIN' THRO' THE RYE, but is a solid film nonetheless.
G.H. Mulcaster plays Denis Marlow, man who has lost his money and fiancée. He's about to jump off a bridge when a stranger talks him out of it. He hops a train and wakes to find himself in Devon, a stranger in a new land. While walking the countryside he comes upon a sleeping woman (Alma Taylor) who has a secret. He calls her Heather Moreland and they soon marry.
Time passes and we learn through several flashbacks, that "Heather" is really Margaret Yeoland and is wanted by the police for the murder of her father. Raised in a convent, she finally went home to meet her father and creepy cousin (James Carew) but learned a terrible secret and fled to wander the moors.
After she confesses her true identity to her husband, he finds a newspaper with headlines about the search for Margaret Yeoland. She's soon arrested and tried for murder. Her cousin has conveniently dispatched a servant to Torquay to visit a dying daughter and has been sworn to secrecy by the cousin. But during the trial, the truth and the woman's secret are revealed.
Alma Taylor was Hepworth's biggest star and appears in all his feature films (at least the four that survive). It's easy to see why she was England's biggest silent film star. Mulcaster and Carew are excellent. Other Hepworth regulars also appear: Gwynne Herbert as Mrs. Grick, John MacAndrews as the servant Pennyquick, and Charles Vane as the father.
G.H. Mulcaster plays Denis Marlow, man who has lost his money and fiancée. He's about to jump off a bridge when a stranger talks him out of it. He hops a train and wakes to find himself in Devon, a stranger in a new land. While walking the countryside he comes upon a sleeping woman (Alma Taylor) who has a secret. He calls her Heather Moreland and they soon marry.
Time passes and we learn through several flashbacks, that "Heather" is really Margaret Yeoland and is wanted by the police for the murder of her father. Raised in a convent, she finally went home to meet her father and creepy cousin (James Carew) but learned a terrible secret and fled to wander the moors.
After she confesses her true identity to her husband, he finds a newspaper with headlines about the search for Margaret Yeoland. She's soon arrested and tried for murder. Her cousin has conveniently dispatched a servant to Torquay to visit a dying daughter and has been sworn to secrecy by the cousin. But during the trial, the truth and the woman's secret are revealed.
Alma Taylor was Hepworth's biggest star and appears in all his feature films (at least the four that survive). It's easy to see why she was England's biggest silent film star. Mulcaster and Carew are excellent. Other Hepworth regulars also appear: Gwynne Herbert as Mrs. Grick, John MacAndrews as the servant Pennyquick, and Charles Vane as the father.