The conflict is over, the struggle is past--
I have looked, I have loved, I have worshiped my last--
And now back to the world, and let fate do her worst
On the heart that for thee such devotion has nursed.
For thee its best feelings were wasted away,
And life hath hereafter not one to betray.
Farewell, then, thou loved one--oh, loved but too well,
Too deeply, too blindly for language to tell!
Farewell, thou hast trampled my love’s faith in the dust,
Thou hast torn from my bosom my faith and my trust;
But if thy life’s current with bliss it would swell,
I would pour out my own in this last fond farewell!
For an instant the lifeblood around John Dinsmore’s heart seemed to
stand still, and his eyes fairly bulged from their sockets. No, it was
no trick of his imagination, the slim, aristocratic hand of his rival,
upon which he gazed so breathlessly, bore upon it a ring of curious
device--a serpent’s body, and deeply imbedded in the flat head was a
triangle of diamonds, in the center of which was a large diamond of
rare brilliancy and beauty.
It was the identical ring his friends had described as being worn by
the man whom they were at that moment hunting down to charge with a
terrible crime.
Ere he could utter the words that arose to his lips, Raymond Challoner
turned away from him, saying, with a haughty sneer:
“It is well you accept my challenge, John Dinsmore; I will meet you on
the spot designated by you upon the beach, at exactly an hour from now.
Until then adieu, most worthy champion of the fair sex, adieu!”
Challoner walked down the length of the broad piazza with the easy,
graceful swagger peculiar to him, his friends about him, talking in
subdued voices, yet anxiously and excitedly, over the event which had
just transpired, and discussing in still lower whispers the probable
outcome of the meeting, until they were lost alike to sight and sound.
Still John Dinsmore stood there where they had left him, like an image
carved in stone, his eyes following the direction in which they had
disappeared.
And standing thus, a terrible temptation came to him, a temptation so
strong that for a moment it almost overpowered him.
He had only to send quickly for his friends, who had gone to the train
to meet the detective, and tell them what he had seen, to bring about
the overthrow of his rival in the very hour of his triumph.
The lover who had been accepted by Queenie Trevalyn as her affianced
husband, would be taken from the hotel in handcuffs. Ah, what a
glorious revenge; sweetened by the thought that Challoner would thus be
parted forever from the girl whom he had loved so madly, and lost.
Then the nobler side of John Dinsmore’s nature struggled for mastery.
Could he, a dismissed suitor, cast the first stone at his successful
rival? Would it be manly, or ignoble?
How Queenie Trevalyn would hate him for it! That thought settled the
matter, his rival should not come to his downfall through him. Far
better that Challoner’s bullet should pierce his heart.
He stood quite motionless, leaning heavily against the massive pillar
of the piazza, lost in deep reverie, thinking it all over.
What had he to live for, now that Queenie Trevalyn was lost to him
forever? Death seemed far more desirable to him than life--without her.
He knew that Raymond Challoner was considered an excellent shot; that
every one declared him particularly clever in the use of firearms; but
that knowledge did not deter John Dinsmore from his purpose.
When his friends entered the hotel, a little later, they found a
summons from him awaiting them, explaining briefly the affair on hand,
which was to come off within an hour, and asking them to meet him on
the beach, at the place and time indicated.
“Whew!” exclaimed Ballou, with a long, low whistle. “What will Dinsmore
be getting into next? Knowing him as well as I do, I realize that it
is useless to attempt to talk him out of this affair of honor, as he
calls it. Heaven grant that he may not fall a victim of his opponent’s
superior marksmanship. Of course I don’t know what the deadly quarrel
between them is about, but----”
His friend, Gaines, cut him short by announcing that they had no time
to speculate as to the cause of the contemplated duel, as they had
barely time to reach the place described--a sort of cove shut in by
high, shelving rocks, fully a mile from the hotel.
“John has given us no time to see him first, and attempt to mediate
between him and his antagonist,” said Gaines, seizing his hat, which he
had but just removed.
“Can nothing be done to prevent the affair from being carried out?”
queried Ballou, turning his white, worried, anxious face toward his
friend.
“It seems not,” returned Gaines, in a voice equally as troubled.
The two friends spoke no other word until they came within sight of the
place. Then Ballou whispered:
“Both principals are on the ground, also his opponent’s seconds; they
are evidently awaiting us.”
This proved to be the case. The antagonists were already facing each
other, weapons in hand.
Although John Dinsmore had determined that it should not be his lips
which should speak proclaiming his rival’s suspected guilt of a former
crime, he supposed, when his friends came to his aid, their sharp eyes
would soon discern the ring. His thoughts carried him no farther than
that.
In the excitement attending the meeting of his opponent upon the beach,
he failed to notice that Raymond Challoner had removed the ring.
Both friends knew, as they rapidly approached, that it was too late to
interfere; the two combatants stood facing each other, fifteen paces
apart, weapons in hand.
Challoner’s second conferred with Ballou for a moment, then they
announced that all was in readiness.
A deathlike silence ensued, broken only by the sobbing of the wind and
the dash of the waves, beating a solemn requiem upon the shore. Slowly
the command was given:
“One--two--three--fire!”
Simultaneously the report of the two pistol shots rang out upon the
midnight air, followed instantly by the sound of a body falling heavily
upon the sands.
John Dinsmore had fallen upon his face, the lifeblood from a wound in
his breast coloring the white beach crimson about him.
In a trice his two friends were bending over him, beside the doctor,
who was making a rapid examination to find out the extent of the
wounded man’s injuries; believing, however, that Raymond Challoner’s
opponent was beyond all human aid. He had figured at several of these
affairs of honor in which Challoner had been engaged, and had never yet
known him to fail to strike the heart at which he aimed.
“He brought it on himself,” said Challoner, addressing his second.
“He would have it!” and he turned away upon his heel with a mocking
sneer curling his cynical lips. Tossing his weapon to his second, he
nonchalantly resumed his hat and coat, and walked coolly away toward
the hotel, not deigning to cast one glance backward, even to take the
trouble to inquire whether his victim was alive, or dead.
Both of the fallen man’s friends heard him remark, as a parting shot:
“Such is the fate of any one who attempts to meddle in my affairs.”
“Your friend is not dead,” said the doctor, hastily, anxious to attract
their attention from Challoner, fearing perhaps a double or a triple
duel might result from this affair.
“He is badly wounded, there is no doubt about that, but in my opinion
the wound is not necessarily fatal. I have every hope that we shall be
able to pull him through, with this splendid physique to aid us.”
The two friends breathed more freely, and Gaines said, slowly:
“If he were to die, the man who murdered him would have the opportunity
to try his hand next on me.”
“And after that on me,” remarked Ballou, “in case he should escape your
bullet.”
“The first thing to be attended to is to get him away from here,” cut
in the doctor, quietly. Adding: “As the hotel is to close within a few
short hours, they would not receive him there. I propose removing him
at once to a little cottage I know of adjacent to this place, in which
lives an old nurse whom I often employ. She will willingly take him in
and do her best for him.”
The two friends received this suggestion gratefully.
Between the three of them, they succeeded in conveying him to the place
indicated, without loss of time, and there the doctor made a further
examination of his injuries.
“Mr. Challoner’s bullet missed its aim by a single hair’s breadth,” he
said; “but with Mrs. Brent’s careful nursing, we may hope for much.”
It was with the greatest of regret that the two friends left Newport
the next day for New York, leaving John Dinsmore, who had not yet
regained consciousness, in the hands of the doctor, who was a resident
of the place, and the aged nurse.
Everything had gone wrong with them; they had been unable, even with
the aid of the skillful detective, to find the slightest trace of the
man for whom they were looking, and concluded that he had left the
resort ere they had reached it, having been informed in advance in some
mysterious manner of their coming.
Meanwhile, the girl for whom John Dinsmore had risked his noble life
a second time, was pacing up and down the floor of her elegant suite
of rooms, with a very perturbed countenance, reading for the twentieth
time the letter which her mother had but just received, read but half
through, and had fainted outright; recovering only to go from one
violent fit of hysterics into another.
Queenie Trevalyn had read it slowly through twice, controlling her
emotions with a supreme effort.
It was from her father, and announced his utter failure in New York.
He had made an unsuccessful venture in Wall Street, and the result was
that every dollar he had on earth had been swept from him.
“When you return to the city,” he wrote, “instead of your own home, it
will be to a boarding house. For myself I care not; but my heart bleeds
for you, my dear wife, and Queenie, knowing full well how much you
both love the luxurious trappings of wealth and position! But my grief
cannot mend matters. Our only hope of retrieving our fallen fortunes is
by Queenie marrying money.”