The title was not, of course, meant to deceive, for Mr. VACHELL is an honest man; and anyhow the critics, for that is their business, would be swift to disillusionize the public; but in our permissible state of suspicion, the audience might easily be led to suppose from the word "Searchlights," combined with the early appearance of an imported Teuton in the person of _Sir Adalbert Schmaltz_, that spy-work was in the air. But the genial domesticity of this naturalized Scot quickly disposed of our unworthy apprehensions, and we soon learned that his _provenance_ had no bearing upon the issue. That issue was concerned with a question of paternity, whose acuteness happened to be contemporaneous with that of the present European crisis. I say "happened"; for here again I cast no reflection upon Mr. VACHELL'S intent, or suggest that the war-element in his play was introduced as an afterthought into his original scheme. If it was, which I doubt, then the patchwork was cleverly concealed; and my only complaint must be of a certain obscurity in the relation between the two patterns in his design. For if the title implied that the effect of the War was to throw a searchlight into the dark places of the human heart (as distinguished from its influence upon our City streets), I do not think that in the case of _Robert Blaine's_ heart, if he had one, the author has made this operation sufficiently clear. Mrs. Blaine had a grown-up son, born after five years of barren wedlock, who was the object of her husband's profound detestation. After some twenty years--a little late, perhaps, in the day, but the author wished us to be present when he did it--_Robert Blaine_, at a moment when his wife is trying to get her boy out of a tight corner, declares an inveterate doubt of his fatherhood, and she makes confession of her fault. Subsequently--in a "strong" scene--she recants, alleging that her confession was a work of creative art, produced in a spasm of spite; and everybody except the immovable _Blaine_ is vastly relieved. But not for long, for she presently recants her recantation. You will guess that, though a little shaken, we were not in despair, but looked hopefully for a re-recantation. But you are in error. Her second confession, though no words passed her lips, was obviously final. And what induced it? What was the piece of conviction? If you will believe me, it was just a photograph with which her husband confronted her--an old photograph of her lover that she mistook for her son's, so close was the likeness. This was surely a flaw in Mr. VACHELL'S scheme, for it is unbelievable that she should have hitherto overlooked this fatal resemblance, even if her attention had not as a fact been called to it by a garrulous friend at quite an early stage in the proceedings of the play. [Illustration: ROBERT BLAINE EXPERIENCING HOW VERY MUCH SHARPER THAN A SERPENT'S TOOTH IT IS TO HAVE SOMEBODY ELSE'S THANKLESS CHILD.