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EVOLVING A PLOT 77 sion. Suppose that we decide in favor of the former. The man first marries and then meets a woman of superior mental or physical attraction. He forgets his vows and turns to her. The wife discovers the situation, but is helpless, making her feeble fight with no hope of victory. Here you have the resignation of the wife to contrast with the evil triumph of the other woman. Then comes the big moment. The man must make a quick de- cision. One woman is guilty in her love, the other is not. In that great moment his heart turns again to the woman to whom he promised protection and he bears her in safety not alone to life, but to a new happiness. It may be that the other woman is saved in some means and lives on, suffering a greater pun- ishment in the success of her rival than if death had claimed her. If the decision is made in favor of the woman he loves, the end can be nothing but misery. This is not because of the moral of the church, but the moral of the picture. In stories an evil action must be punished by evil. The spectre of the dead wife must ever stand between them. Happiness will not be possible because it will outrage the sense of justice. The man's unhappiness is the punishment for his crime. Taking the story of the purer love for the woman not his wife, we have a new set of developments. We find the man who has married for sonic reason other than love, in the fulfillment of a death-bed promise, to save a woman's name, or any other chivalrous reason. The woman he loves knows and under- stands. The love is pure, but hopeless. Then conies the de- cision. If the wife is left, the road is open to marriage. If the wife is saved love is lost. It is the other woman who makes the decision in accordance with her entire course of action. She makes him save the wife turning to face the death she does not fear. Here, too, it is possible to work to the happy finish. In spite of all the man can do, the wife is not saved. The other woman survives. Honorable marriage is now open to them and they have' no cause for reproach. It is what we have been wishing for all along and did not dare hope for. The best climax is that which comes as a surprise and satis- fies the wishes of the audience after it has been made to appear that this consummation is utterly impossible. 'Having worked back to the start, perhaps we find that the story moves in some other direction toward a new climax. Perhaps the discovery of the husband's infidelity caused the death of the wife and, all too late he discovers that it was his wife whom he really loved. He faces his punishment in a loveless