“The Fighting Hope,” even as rectified and notwithstanding its measure of popular success, was but a flimsy fabric,--crude in construction and improbable in plot, though at times theatrically effective. In it is displayed an experience of a loyal wife, _Anna Granger_, who clings to “the fighting hope” of vindicating her husband and rescuing him from the consequences of crime. That husband, a peculiarly contemptible scoundrel, has been detected in a forgery; has been tried, convicted, and imprisoned. His wife, believing him to be innocent and the victim of _Burton Temple_, president of a fiduciary institution, obtains employment in the service of that person and becomes his confidential secretary. In that capacity, after discovering and shamefully destroying a letter which establishes the guilt of her husband, she discovers, also, that she is beloved by _Temple_ and that a reciprocal sentiment is developing in her own bosom. And then, having confessed her identity, her wrong conduct, and her regard, she is relieved from a distressing dilemma by the convenient taking off of her husband,--who, having escaped from the State Prison at Sing Sing, is overtaken, shot, and killed by officers of the law who pursue him. In the hands of any other manager than Belasco, instead of enduring for two years, this piece--if it had ever been produced at all--would have been relegated to the regions of tall timber and high grass within a fortnight. “Nobody’s Widow” is an ephemeral farce, the central idea of which is denial of an established relationship in circumstances which might cause absurd perplexities and ridiculous consequences,--such, in general character, as ensue when _Charles Courtly_, in “London Assurance,” on being introduced to his father, _Sir Harcourt_, blandly greets him as a new acquaintance. The chief female character, _Roxana_, acted by Miss Bates, has, in Europe, met and married a “_Mr. Clayton_,” who, actually, is an English nobleman, the _Duke of Moreland_; but having, on their wedding-day, found him in the embrace of a former mistress, _Roxana_ has repudiated and left him,--privately instituting proceedings for divorce, and presently apprising her friends in America that her husband, of whom they have heard, but only by his assumed name of _Clayton_, is dead, and that she, accordingly, is a widow. Later she visits some of those friends at Palm Beach, Florida, and there she is, by chance, confronted by her husband, then a visitor to the same hostess, but bearing his right name. _Roxana’s_ husband endeavors to reinstate himself in her affections, but, persistently and with alternate pleasantry and sarcasm, he is treated by her as an accidental acquaintance. _Roxana_ assures him that, as “_Mr. Clayton_” he is “dead”; that she has never seen him before; that to her he is, as the _Duke of Moreland_, nobody; that she is nobody’s widow. That attitude she maintains until apprised of her