A Million a Minute

Philip and Miles Quaintance quarrel over the love of Ellen Sheridan; Miles is rejected, while Philip is successful. Philip dies soon after his son is born, and Miles proposes to the widow. When she refuses him, he uses every means to make her unhappy. She leaves the Southland where they live, taking her infant son Stephen. When Stephen has grown to manhood, his mother dies, first telling him the story of Miles' persecution. He is so embittered against his uncle that he avoids meeting him, and he leaves for South Africa. Miles Quaintance amasses a fortune, and in his declining years he hopes to meet Stephen to make restitution for the wrongs he had done his parents. Miles has a ward, Dagmar Lorraine, whom he sends to Paris to study singing. There she meets Etienne, the Duke de Reves, who has an unsavory reputation. He makes violent love to Dagmar and obtains her consent to marry him. After the ceremony a woman enters the church carrying a baby whom she claims is the Duke's son. Horrified, Dagmar flees from the church and returns to America. In a whimsical mood, and partly to atone for the wrongs he had done in his past, Miles makes a will leaving his $10 million fortune to Dagmar and Stephen, provided that they marry and that the wedding takes place before midnight of the following May 31. Miles does not know of Dagmar's wedding and dies before she arrives in America. Stephen is notified of the contents of the strange will at a trading station in Africa. He decides he will take no assistance from his uncle, and with Timothy O'Farrell, a companion, he plans a way out of it. They find the body of a white man floating in the river, and Stephen puts all his papers and trinkets in the pockets of the dead man. Mark Seager, a gunrunner, finds the body and conceives the idea of impersonating the dead man, marrying Dagmar, and claiming the legacy. He sets off for America immediately. Stephen and O'Farrell also leave for America. They are in a restaurant, where they see a man abusing a young girl and using threatening language. It is the valet of the Duke, who has met Dagmar and is trying to blackmail her for his silence. Stephen drives the valet out of the place, and is charmed by the appearance and manner of the girl. She leaves before he can question her. While driving her automobile home that night, Dagmar has trouble with the engine. When she stops to fix it Seager, who does not know her, observes her predicament and attempts to take advantage of it. She frighte