Die Frauen des Josias Grafenreuth (1918)

Germany, in the distant past. Josias Graffenreuth once spent his youth with the girls Ilse and Susanne. As a young man, he emigrated to South America. After returning, he courts Ilse, even though the other girl, Susanne, has loved him with all her heart for as long as she can remember. Susanne has to accept, with a heavy heart, that Ilse and Josias are going to marry. A year later, Ilse has a child, but the young mother dies shortly afterward. Tormented by emotional pain, Josias begins to bury himself in his boundless grief. At the urging of Ursel, a close relative, Josias sets out to find a new mother for the child, a little girl named Trude. He asks Susanne to marry him, but makes it clear at the same time that he is not in love with her. Susanne accepts his proposal, hoping that his love will come in time, through her love for him. On the day of the wedding, Susanne is given the family jewels, but Josias keeps back one particular ring, traditionally presented to a bride only when the marriage is accompanied by deeply felt love. From then on, Susanne does her best to free Josias from the deep melancholy caused by Ilse's death through her love, but she does not succeed. She cannot even win Trude's affection. When the little girl is about to eat some deadly nightshade berries, Susanne rushes in between, only to hear the little girl hitting her and saying that Susanne begrudges her everything. Deeply hurt, Susanne withdraws, and Trude promptly dies from the effects of the deadly nightshade poison. Susanne Graffenreuth is now accused of murder and sentenced to death. Susanne's grandmother explains to her unsuspecting husband what really happened to cause Trude's death. He cannot prevent his wife's execution by guillotine, but, while she is on the scaffold, he gives Susanne the ring he had kept back until then, finally declaring his love for his second wife.