Respectable by Proxy (1920)

Rich Southerner John Stanley Hale meets flirtatious actress Elizabeth Roddard, she induces him to marry her, but after several days of quarreling, he flees to Russia. After John's vessel is sunk in mid-ocean and he is reported dead, Elizabeth convinces her destitute and ailing friend Betty Blair to pose as John's widow in order to inherit his fine home in Alabama.