The Autobiography of a Play | Page 5

parted from her. She is again the
wayward girl that waited for his return; he has returned!--and she does
what she would have done five years before; she turns, passionately, to
throw herself into his arms. At this moment, her little child, Natalie,
runs in. Lilian is a mother again, and a wife. She falls to her knees and
embraces her child at the very feet of her former lover. Harold
Routledge bows his head reverently, and leaves them together.
Act third. The art of breaking the tenth commandment--thou shalt not
covet they neighbor's wife--has reached its highest perfection in France.
One of the most important laws of dramatic construction might be
formulated in this way. If you want a particular thing done, choose a
character to do it that an audience will naturally expect to do it. I
wanted a man to fall in love with my heroine after she was a married
woman, and I chose a French count for that purpose. I knew that an
American audience would not only expect him to fall in love with
another man's wife, but it would be very much surprised if he didn't.
This saved much explanation and unnecessary dialog. Harold
Routledge overhears the Count de Carojac, a hardened roué and a
duellist, speaking of Lilian in such terms as no honorable man should
speak of a modest woman. Routledge, with a studio in Rome, and
having been educated at a German university, is familiar with the use of
the rapier. A duel is arranged. Lilian hears of it thru a female friend,
and Strebelow, also, thru the American second of Mr. Routledge. The
parties meet at the Château Chateaubriand, in the suburbs of Paris, at
midnight, by the light of the moon, in winter. A scream from Lilian, as
she reaches the scene in breathless haste, throws Routledge off his
guard; he is wounded and falls. Strebelow, too, has come on the field,
not knowing the cause of the quarrel; but anxious to prevent a meeting

between two of his own personal friends. Lilian is ignorant of her
husband's presence, and she sees only the bleeding form of the man she
loves lying upon the snow. She falls at his side, and words of burning
passion, checked a few hours before by the innocent presence of her
child, spring to her lips. The last of these words are as follows: "I have
loved you--and you only--Harold, from the first."
These words, clear, unmistakable, carrying their terrible truth straight
to his heart, come to John Strebelow as the very first intimation that his
wife did not love him when she married him. Crushed by this sudden
blow, an expression of agony on his face, he stands for a moment
speechless. When his voice returns, he has become another man. He is
hard and cold, still generous, so far as those things a generous man
cares least for are concerned. He will share all his wealth with her; but,
in the awful bitterness of a great heart, at that moment, he feels that the
woman who has deceived him so wickedly has no natural right to be
the guardian of their child. "Return to our home, madam; it will be
yours, not mine, hereafter; but our child will not be there." Ungenerous
words! But if we are looking in our own hearts, where we must find
nearly all the laws of dramatic construction, how many of us would be
more generous, with such words as John Strebelow had just heard
ringing in our ears? As the act closes, the startled love of a mother has
again and finally asserted itself in Lilian's heart, its one overmastering
passion of her nature. With the man she has loved lying near her,
wounded, and, for aught she knows, dying, she is thinking only of her
lost child. Maternal love, thruout the history of the world, has had
triumphs over all the other passions; triumphs over destitution and trials
and tortures; over all the temptations incident to life; triumphs to which
no other impulse of the human heart--not even the love of man for
woman--has ever risen. One of the most brilliant men I had ever known
once said in court; "Woman, alone, shares with the Creator the
privilege of communing with an unborn human being"; and, with this
privilege, the Creator seems to have shared with woman a part of His
own great love. All other love in our race is merely human. The play,
from this time on, becomes the story of a mother's love.
Acts fourth and fifth. Two years later Lilian is at the home of her father

in New York. Her husband has disappeared. His name was on the
passenger list of a wrecked steamer; and no other word of him or