Though in later years she tended to dismiss her silent film career as a temporary aberration, Ethel Barrymore starred in quite a few silents, most of them released in 1915 and 1916. Based on a novel by Margaret Deland, Helena Ritchie found Barrymore playing the title character, the much-abused wife of a loutish tosspot (Robert Whittler). When her husband kills her baby in a drunken rage, Helena escapes into the arms of her former sweetheart, Lloyd Pryor (played by the "other" Robert Cummings). But she is denied even this balm when a hellfire-and-brimstone preacher (J.A. Furey) condemns Helena for her "illicit" relationship with the honorable Pryor. Thanks to the minister's interference, Helena is also prevented from adopting an orphaned boy whom she loves dearly. Sadly, Helena agrees to withdraw from Pryor's life, but only if he is permitted to adopt the child. Touched by this self-sacrificial gesture, the minister declares that Helena is, after all, "sinless," and magnanimously permits her to go on with her life.
by Hal Erickson
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