The Greater Wrong

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James Cannon, a young engineer, anxious to better himself, finally marries Helen Maitland, an heiress. Grace Andrews, a stenographer in the employ of Cannon, secretly loves him, but he is unmindful of the fact. After their marriage, Helen's ideals regarding Cannon are shattered, for she realizes that he married her for money and they begin to draw apart. Later when her child is born they partly resume their intimacy. When Cannon suggests to Helen that she let him manage her entire estate the previous quarrel is resumed with the result that Cannon disappears and Helen then takes up society, leaving her child in the nurse's care. Returning home one evening Helen finds the child is dead, and that day she receives a letter from Cannon telling of his love for his child and that he will soon return. Helen, fearful of the consequence of her act, learns from the doctor that he has in his keeping a little child whose mother died at its birth. Helen, not knowing that this is Grace's child, decides to substitute it for her own and so Helen's child is buried with Grace. On his return Cannon finds that the child turns away from him and he is broken-hearted. With the passing years the substituted child never shows affection for Cannon and she causes him many a heartache. Helen, not knowing of the child's parentage, is fearful of the outcome. Later when the daughter is grown she and Cannon quarrel and she tells him that she never loved him as there is something in him that always prevented it. Helen, seeing that Cannon's heart is broken, confides the secret. Cannon turns on her in anger, but the doctor, who has been summoned, takes Cannon to one side and tells him that the child is really his own and of the terrible agony in which Grace died because of his neglect of her. Cannon seeks Helen and confesses his guilt.