Het geheim van den vuurtoren

Summary

Melodrama about a lighthouse-keeper who is blackmailed into theft.

The young poacher Hendrik van Norden has seriously wounded a game-keeper, who has not recognized him. However, there was one witness to Hendrik's misstep, the old sea captain Van Oort, but for the sake of Hendrik's old mother he promises to keep silent. Five years later Hendrik has become a lighthouse-keeper and is courting Annie, the housekeeper of the miser Van der Meulen. Van Oort, one of the miser's few friends, is also trying to win Annie's affections - in vain. One evening, when he sees Annie and Hendrik embracing, Van Oort, in an access of jealousy, reminds Hendrik of what he knows about his past as a poacher. Hendrik confesses to Annie, but she forgives him. Because he is short of cash, Van Oort starts to blackmail Annie. To guarantee his silence she must steal a large amount of money from the miser. The desperate young lovers see no other way to escape from the clutches of Van Oort than to let him have what he wants. Under cover of darkness, they overpower the miser and take him to an abandoned lighthouse of which Hendrik has the keys. Then they give Van Oort the money they have removed from the miser's strong-box. Margaretha, Van Oort's daughter, in love with the miser's son Willem, comes in time to rescue the prisoner and to return the stolen money. Annie and Hendrik, shocked by what they have done, seek oblivion and remission by means of a double suicide.