The Dawn of Happiness, adapted from Peril

Examiner of Plays' Summary:

This extremely long play has an extremely complicated plot, a detailed synopsis of which would be the length of an average novel, the play is an adaptation of a"great serial story". Reduced to its elements, however, and without regard to the sequence of the play, the plot is as follows. Mrs Hart Hartman is a wealthy widow. Her husband Lionel Hart, married her for her money being already married to one Mary. By her he had a son, known as Gerald Smith, apparently ignorant of his birth. Mrs HH supposes that Mary was only Lionel's mistress and further believes that Mary killed Lionel whereas she herself had, in delirium. She wishes to find Mary's child. Her steward, John Dill, produces Ruth Day who was not really Mary's child but thought she was. Meanwhile Mrs HH's nephew, Goring, having discovered Smith's parentage gets him wrongfully sentenced to penal servitude, and tricks Smith into marrying him. But Smith escapes from prison and Ruth having discovered Goring's real return she and Smith flee together. Then, after many complications in varied scenes, everything is by way of being cleared up when Goring tries to wreck the train in which most of the other characters are travelling, but is himself stained in the attempt, and his demise removes the last obstacle to the happiness of Ruth and Smith now Hart. The adapter has handled his mass of material with some skill, the chief impossibility being that events which would take hours to happen happen in half a minute. And there is nothing offensive in the play, although it might turn the brain of a simple person who tried to follow its intricacies. Some of the minor characters are quite natural [...]