The Greater Duty (1922)

When Bill Hinchley is wrongfully imprisoned his wife, Mary, becomes a schoolteacher out of necessity concealing from the school trustees that she is the wife of a convict. Sneaky Pete, Bill's cellmate, steals a letter from Mary to Bill, and, his term expired, follows Mary and extorts her, by threatening to cause her to lose her job by revealing her secret. Attempting to escape Bill gives up his chance at freedom to rescue the warden's children - and is later pardoned, coming home to wreak vengeance on Sneaky Pete, and justify Mary's faith in him.