Born Again (1914)

Dorothy Grey has a quarrel with her stepmother and goes on the stage. She meets with immediate success, but is disgusted with her surroundings. A theatrical manager makes himself obnoxious by his attentions, and when George Dunbar, a wealthy man, proposes to her Dorothy accepts him. The next day, immediately after the ceremony, Dunbar gives a dinner to a few friends at his country home. It is a fast crowd, and too much wine is drunk. In his intoxicated condition Dunbar is a revolting sight to Dorothy. Seeing that Dorothy is displeased, Dunbar orders the people to leave. In his maudlin state he tries to make up with Dorothy but she will not permit him to touch her. Filled with revulsion she determines to leave her husband, but he catches her and throws her back into the room, her head striking on a chair. Dorothy later makes her escape. Dorothy wanders aimlessly until sunrise, and is half delirious when she reaches the farm of the widow Marsh and her son Jeff. Dorothy becomes hysterical and Dr. Morrow is compelled to give her a hypodermic injection. She awakens the next morning with her mind completely blank, the blow on the head having caused aphasia. She has the mind of a child, though she learns with astounding rapidity. With her matured brain, however, she acquires knowledge hourly, and soon her mind is completely restored, though her memory prior to her arrival at the farmhouse, when she gave a fictitious name, is entirety blank. Jeff falls in love with Dorothy and the two are married. On the night of the wedding Dr. Morrow is called away. Dr. Morrow finally comes back and the wedding takes place. A year later a baby is born and Dorothy's memory is completely restored. In visions she lives again the incidents which made her twice a bride and she turns from her baby in horror and refuses to see Jeff. To the doctor she tells her story and the shame of her first husband. The doctor then tells her what occurred on the night of her marriage. Dunbar had gone out in his racing car in an intoxicated condition, and falling over a high cliff, had been killed. The call for the doctor came when he was at the Marsh home, and he hurried to the scene of the accident. It therefore developed that Dunbar died thirty minutes before Dorothy's second marriage. The doctor calls Jeff, and he is joyfully received by his wife.