Human Hearts

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Village blacksmith Tom Logan is in love with Ruth, a simple country lass who returns his love with all the devotion at her command. Tom's parents look on this match with favor. One night a horse kicks Tom's little brother in the head, rendering him a little "queer" as the village folk say. Tom is sent for the doctor. On his way back he overtakes a man in the act of beating a woman. An overturned buggy stands close by for the man to get away. Tom finds the woman one of evident refinement. She claims to be a trained nurse. Tom begs her to come home with him and nurse his injured brother. This she does and in time Tom falls in love with her. Forgetting his former sweetheart, he marries the woman much against his parents' wishes. Several years pass. Tom's wife has presented him with a little daughter, but country life has grown irksome for her; she meets her former lover one day and is induced to elope with him and she, fearing that Tom will follow them, induces her lover to kill Tom. Meanwhile, Tom has just become reconciled with his father, whom his wife had estranged from him. Seeing the latter in the smithy and mistaking him for Tom, the interloper stabs him to death. Discovering the mistake, he and the women accuse Tom of the deed. Tom is sentenced to life in prison. Years pass. Tom's mother, blind through grief, is about to be ejected from the old home. She goes with Jimmy to the governor's and with the help of the tramp, manages to secure Tom's pardon. Prior to this, the wife had taken the child with her. On being released, Tom goes in search of his baby, helped by the tramp he had befriended years before. He had learned of the whereabouts of the guilty couple and, assuring Tom that he knows the truth about the murder, lead him to their home. Face-to-face with his unfaithful wife, Tom demands his child. There is a scuffle. The interloper draws a gun to shoot Tom. He accidentally shoots the wife, is arrested and confesses. Tom returns home with his child and eventually marries his childhood sweetheart, who has remained true to his memory all these years.