Poppy (1917)

The story of "Poppy" tells of how a young girl converted by a cruel aunt into a drudge on a South African farm runs away and finally finds herself in the home of an affinity of one of the three bad men of South Africa. This man takes her to his beautiful home under pretense of philanthropy, and previous to leaving on a visit to Europe he calls in a French priest who marries him to the girl, who is led to suppose that she is merely being adopted. She stays within the bounds of his home and garden without mingling with a living creature other than the servants, until one night the third of the three bad men, a bachelor, in a delirium from an attack of fever, enters the grounds by a gate that has accidentally been left unlocked. The girl happening there also a love scene is enacted which we are startled to learn near the close of the picture resulted in the birth of a child, which falls from a window in London, where his mother has become famous in the literary world, and is killed. The story is given happy ending by having the husband renounce Poppy in favor of the other man.