“Then let the inheritance go if it be mine only on condition that I
take a wife with it,” exclaimed John Dinsmore, proudly. “I will have
none of it. Never mention it to me again if you are true friends of
mine and respect my feelings. I would not marry the loveliest or the
richest woman the world holds. I could never look into a woman’s face
with love in my heart for her, and the man who marries a woman without
loving her is a villain, a rascal of the deepest dye. Heaven forbid
that I should sell my honor and my manhood for such a price. Say no
more about the inheritance, boys, I spurn it.”
“You have actually gone mad, Dinsmore,” cried Ballou, vehemently. “It
would do for an actor on the stage to rant about wealth in that way,
but in real life it is quite a different matter. One would think to
hear you that you never knew what it was to want a square meal when
your stories were returned with thanks, or to borrow enough from your
friends to buy a paper dickey and cuffs in which to make a neat show
before an editor. Bah!--don’t be a fool, I say. Take the goods the gods
provide.”
“And I echo Ballou’s sentiments,” declared Jerry Gaines. “No one
but a positive madman would let such a chance slip. Money can do
anything, old fellow. It can purchase comfort and position, the luxury
of idleness, royal good times, every enjoyment--ay, and last but not
least, the hand of a beautiful woman in marriage. What more could you
want?”
“I should want the heart of the woman I wedded, and money cannot buy
the love of a true, good woman’s heart,” returned John Dinsmore,
huskily.
As he spoke he thought of the royally beautiful creature from whom
he had so lately parted on those self-same white sands, the girl to
whom he had given all the love of his loyal heart, only to be scoffed
at and spurned; the girl whom he had blindly believed Providence had
especially given to him since the hour he had saved her life so
miraculously, risking thereby the loss of his own. He had been so sure
of her that he never for one instant doubted fate’s intentions, and had
given himself up to his idolatrous love for her, body and soul, heart
and mind.
“Say no more on the subject, good friends. You both mean well, I know,
but it can never be,” said Dinsmore, earnestly. “Believe me, I know why
I speak thus. Say no more to me of the inheritance. Help me to forget
that it was ever in my grasp; that will be true friendship shown to me.”
“We must leave you for an hour or so to write up this gay ball and send
in the sketch of it,” said Gaines, wishing Dinsmore to have plenty of
time to think over his good fortune, and not to decide to cast it from
him too hastily.
The “Trinity” walked slowly back to the hotel. On the veranda they
parted, the two friends going in the direction of the ballroom, while
Dinsmore threw himself into a chair in the shadow of one of the great
pillars--to think.
How long he sat there he never knew. He was startled at length by the
sound of voices. Two people had approached and seated themselves on the
rustic bench on the other side of the wide pillar. A massive potted
palm screened them from him, performing for him the same service, but
he knew well that musical girlish voice which had the power to move
his heart at will even yet. It was Queenie Trevalyn, and with her was
Raymond Challoner, the handsomest of all the fast, gay set of young
millionaires at Newport.
I strictly affirm, dear reader, that it was not Dinsmore’s intention to
remain there and listen. He would have arisen instantly and quitted the
veranda, but fate seemed to decree otherwise. He was unable to raise
hand or foot or utter any sound. A terrible numbness seemed to close
down upon his every faculty, holding them as in a vise.
Words cannot tell the agonies he suffered there. The tortures of the
rack, where he would have been stretched limb from limb, until death
relieved him, would not have been harder to endure.
He heard handsome, indolent Raymond Challoner pour into those pretty
pink-tinted ears the story of his love, and he heard the lips of the
girl who was more to him than life itself accept the young heir of the
Challoner millions, in the sweetest of words.
“I have just one odd determination, call it a notion if you will,” he
heard the young heir of Challoner say, “and that is, never to wed a
girl to whom any other man has ever whispered words of love. No man has
ever spoken of love to you, Queenie, or ever asked you to be his bride,
has there?”
And the girl from whom he had parted on the white sands less than half
an hour before steeped her red lips with the horrible falsehood of
answering:
“No, Raymond, I have never given any one save yourself encouragement to
speak to me of love, believe me.”
“I almost believed the bronzed and bearded, mysterious Mr. Dinsmore
might take it into his head to try to win you,” he remarked, musingly.
Queenie Trevalyn laughed an amused laugh.
“What absurd nonsense,” she cried. “Why, he has never been anything
more to me than a mere acquaintance,” and she polluted her lips with a
second lie when she went on smoothly: “Papa paid him for the service
he rendered me in that elevator affair, and that ended any obligation
on my part. Furthermore, I must say that you do not compliment my
taste very highly to imagine for an instant that I could possibly fall
in love with such a dark-browed, plebeian-appearing man as Mr. John
Dinsmore! The very thought that you could have imagined so mortifies me
exceedingly.”
“There, there, Queenie, do not take it to heart so. Of course you
couldn’t; only he followed you about so constantly that I own I was
furiously jealous, and thought seriously of calling him out to mortal
combat. Now that I do consider it soberly, I agree with you that he
is hardly the type of man to inspire love in a young girl’s romantic
heart, despite his bushy whiskers and melancholy air. But let us waste
no more words upon him. We can spend the fleeting hours much more
advantageously by talking of love and our future.”
They walked away laughing, arm in arm, leaving the man on the other
side of the pillar sitting there like one carved in stone. The heart
in his bosom had seemed to break with one awful throb, rendering him
almost lifeless, and thus his friends found him when they came out to
search for him an hour later.
“Did you think our hour an unusually long one?” laughed Gaines, adding,
before his friend had time to reply:
“I have now another commission on my hands which is far more important
than writing up the grand ball. Shortly after leaving you I received a
lengthy telegram from our editor, ordering me to wait over instead of
taking the midnight train back to New York, as was first arranged, to
meet one of Pinkerton’s men, who ought to arrive here at any hour now.
“It seems that he is in search of a young fellow who is giving the
police here, there and everywhere no end of trouble. He is a high-flyer
with expectations, and taking advantage of future prospects, has gone
in heavy--borrowing money, gambling, and even forging for big amounts.
He appeared suddenly in Saratoga one day last week, at the races, and
was one of the most desperate plungers at the track. The climax to his
rapid career is he had a furious encounter with a man that night, who
had won large sums on the track, and the upshot of the affair was the
man was found murdered in the early dawn of the following morning,
and the only clew which could lead to the identity of the perpetrator
of the deed is the imprint of a ring of most peculiar design upon the
temple of the victim--a triangle, set with stones, diamonds presumably,
with a large stone in the center. This is the only clew Pinkerton’s man
is following, since the descriptions differ so radically.”
“This gives an added zest to our trip,” laughed Ballou, who was always
ready for anything which promised excitement. “Will you walk over to
meet the incoming train with us?” addressing Dinsmore.
“No,” replied John, almost wearily, “I will sit here and smoke my
cigar, as a sort of nerve steadier.”
“I advise you strongly to think not twice but a score of times ere
you make up your mind to throw up a handsome fortune simply because
there is a string tied to it in the shape of a pretty young girl, for
no doubt she is pretty. Young girls cannot well help being sweet and
comely, I have discovered.”
John Dinsmore watched his friends walk away, and as they vanished into
the thick, dark gloom he gave himself up to his own dreary thoughts.
The story he had just heard, thrilling though it was, quickly vanished
from his mind, as did also the fortune that might be his for the
claiming. All he could think of was the lovely young girl upon whom he
had set his heart and soul--his very life, as it were--who had spurned
him so contemptuously and for one whom he could not think worthy of
such a treasure, as he still blindly believed Queenie Trevalyn to be.
He had not been thrown into Raymond Challoner’s society much, and from
what little John Dinsmore did see of him he had not formed a very
favorable impression. He had heard that his wine bills were quite a
little fortune in themselves, and on several occasions, when in the
midst of a crowd of young men in the office, who were as fast and gay
as himself, John Dinsmore had heard him boast of his conquests with
fair women, and of episodes so rollicking in their nature that John
Dinsmore, man of honor as he was, reverencing all womankind, would
arise abruptly from his seat, throw down the paper he had been vainly
endeavoring to read, and walk away with a frown and unmistakable
contempt in his face as he turned away from Challoner’s direction,
going beyond the hearing of his voice and hilarious tales. If any other
man had won the treasure that cruel fate denied to him he could have
endured the blow better; but Challoner!
“Ah! Heaven grant that she shall never have cause to rue her choice,”
he ruminated.
In the midst of his musing he was interrupted by the voice of the very
man upon whom his thoughts were bent--Raymond Challoner.
It had been an hour or more since he had parted from the girl who had
just promised to be his bride. The lights of the grand ballroom were
out, and the greater portion of the great hotel was wrapped in gloom,
with but here and there the twinkling light in the windows of some
belated guest, and these, too, were rapidly disappearing, leaving the
world to darkness and itself.
It was the hour when the sports of Newport banded together to smoke
their cigars and talk over their wine, and their revelry usually lasted
far into the wee sma’ hours. To-night these young men seemed bent upon
having a royal good time together, in celebration of their last night
at the famous resort.
Half a score of friends were with Challoner. He was always the
ringleader among his companions. Just now all seemed highly amused at
some anecdote he was relating. His unsteady steps showed John Dinsmore
that he was under the influence of wine. He arose and turned away with
a sigh, anxious to get out of sight of the sneering, handsome face of
his rival and away from the sound of his voice.
At that instant the sound of Miss Trevalyn’s name on his rival’s lips
caught and held his attention. Raymond Challoner was boasting of his
conquest over the heart of the belle and beauty of the season. John
Dinsmore was rooted to the spot with horror to hear him discuss in the
next breath the sweetness of the betrothal kiss he had received from
the peerless Queenie.
A general laugh followed and remarks which made the blood boil in John
Dinsmore’s veins. He was fairly speechless from rage.
“And when do you intend to wed the beautiful Queenie?” asked a dozen or
more rollicking voices.
“A month or two later, provided I do not see some bewitching little
fairy in the meantime who will suit me better. I----”
The sentence was never finished. With a leap, John Dinsmore was before
him, with a face so ghastly with wrath that those who saw it were
stricken dumb.
“Take that! for maligning a lady, you dastardly scoundrel!” cried John,
in a sonorous voice ringing with passion. And as he uttered the words
out flew his strong right arm with the force of a sledge hammer, and in
an instant Raymond Challoner was measuring his length before him on the
porch.
“So it is you, the unsuccessful wooer, who champions Miss Trevalyn’s
cause, is it? Well that is indeed rich,” he cried, white to the lips,
adding: “I am not so good with my fists as you seem to be; however,
I insist upon wiping out this insult with your blood or mine, John
Dinsmore, ere another day dawns. Here and now I challenge you to a duel
on the beach, within an hour’s time. I will teach you then that it is
folly to interfere in another man’s affairs.”
As he spoke he raised his hand threateningly, and to John Dinsmore’s
horror he saw upon it a triangular diamond ring, such as had been
described by his friends.