STRANGER THAN FICTION.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 119, 12 July 1911, Page 3

STRANGER THAN FICTION.

'The preparation ol a dramatic film by a Paris linn of moving picture experts was the beginning oi a drama of real life recently. Georges Clermont was not a wealthy man. Hut lie felt himself rich, indeed, in that he possessed a wife who was so excellent a housekeeper that, the pair oi them were able to live more cheaply than he had been able to live alone. One day Mine. Clermont showed her husband a telegram: “Mother dangerously ill ; come at once.” M. Clermont helped Ids wife to hurry away in answer to the summons. Hewas lonely without her, for they had never before been separated. ■, Idly he strolled the boulevard, turning at last into a picture show. Ho sat and watched the pictures, which did not interest him much. Suddenly lie cried out. His wile had strolled across the screen! He watched her go to the poste restante and receive a letter; he saw a man put his arm around her, and kiss her. That night he spent tossing over his wife’s papers, searching lor further evidence for a case that was already complete. By eight o’clock the ' next night she was home again. His face startled her. She stood looking at him, and breathed rather than spoke his name once in surprise, “Georges!” And a slight smile played round the corners of her mouth. ’That smile enraged him. He whipped out a revolver and fired. The shot went wide, and he lire no second. At the police station he told his story, and after it was ended, Mine. Clermont asked for five minutes iu private with the Commissioner. Next morning they led M. Clermont to a groat tin budding in the suburbs. Inside there was a crowd. Policemen held him firmly as the man he had seen kiss his wife, in the moving picture, strolled up. And all of a sudden Clermont saw a painted background representing a cafe. There were a real table and chairs in the foreground. Mine. Clermont and the young man sat down. A waiter came and served them. Suddenly Georges Clermont understood, “The cinematograph has doubled our income for the past three months,” his wife told him. Turning to the two policemen she said, “M. le Comniissaire told yon that yon might go when I said all was safe,” she said. “There is no charge against my husband. It is all a mistake.” And as they left the shed together, Georges Clermont, with tears in his eyes, murmured his wife’s name, “Marie!” And his wife forgave him.