“How does a woman love? Once, no more,
Though life forever its loss deplore.
Deep in sorrow, or want, or sin,
One king reigneth her heart within;
One alone by night and day,
Moves her spirit to curse or pray.
Though loves beset her and friends deride;
Yea, when she smileth another’s bride;
Still for her love her heart makes moan.
To love once is forever, and once alone!”
“I do hope, Queenie, that you are not commencing to grow sentimental!”
cried Mrs. Trevalyn, holding up her hands as though the very idea was a
blow which she was warding off.
“Would such a state of affairs surprise you very much, mamma?” retorted
the girl, cresting her head defiantly. “Youth is the age of romance, of
joy, and--and the mating of true hearts.”
“Youth is the age of nonsense!” retorted her mother, spiritedly. “If
I had been romantic instead of sensible when I was your age, Queenie,
I should have had a sorry enough life of it. I say then, young as I
was, that it was wealth that ruled the world, and not love. Why, I
threw over a handsome young doctor, whose only wealth was his brains,
for your father, who was accounted at that time the best catch of the
season at Newport.”
“And you married my father for his money, while your heart was the
young doctor’s?” queried Queenie, gravely.
“That was the way of it,” assented her mother, coolly; though she had
the grace to flush a little under her daughter’s gaze.
“Then I do not wonder that Heaven punished you by causing the man you
wedded for his wealth to lose it, at the time in your life when you
needed it most; though it is hard lines for poor papa!”
“It is not for you to sit in judgment upon my actions!” cried Mrs.
Trevalyn, angrily. “I won’t tolerate it. I knew what I was doing. Money
is best.”
“Love is best!” murmured Queenie, “and without it, all the wealth of
the world is but dross,” and, as she uttered the words, her thoughts
flew back to the lover whom she had left on the white sands, ere she
had been taught that pitiful lesson, and she walked slowly from the
room. Her mother watched her with darkening brows.
“I thought I had brought that girl up to be sensible,” she ruminated;
“but I find she is as foolish as the general run of girls. One thing
is certain, she must marry rich, and such a marriage cannot take place
too soon for my peace of mind! How quickly time flies; we have been
home from Newport over a month now, and as yet Hiram Brown is the only
wealthy suitor who has come forward for Queenie’s hand. The girl has
changed, every one notices that; and all on account of that audacious
fellow who dared to make love to her at Newport without so much as a
dollar in his pocket. He has caught her heart in the rebound, it would
seem. One never knows the true inwardness of a girl’s heart, anyway.
“Of course, now that he is rich I would be glad enough to have him
for a son-in-law; but his pride was cut too deeply when she sent him
from her, ever to return to her again, and I now shrewdly suspect that
Queenie is breaking her foolish heart in secret over it. And to make
the matter worse, that book of his has taken the public like wildfire,
and every one is talking of him now. He is not only rich, but famous,
and could get his pick of all the society girls in New York, they’re
so given up to hero worship. And in their eyes the handsome author of
‘Life as We Find It’ really is a hero.
“But Queenie must not waste her time grieving over him. I must stop
that nonsense, and at once; and the best way to accomplish that is to
hasten Hiram Brown’s proposal--and her acceptance.”
And thus she settled the matter in her own mind.
To Queenie the continued silence of John Dinsmore was almost
intolerable, but woman-like, her love for him grew under his seeming
indifference and neglect, instead of abating.
When the book from which he had hoped so much, and of which he had told
her, was launched upon the tide, and instantly met with public favor,
and it began to be spoken of everywhere, no one was prouder of it than
Queenie.
She longed to say to her girl friends:
“The man who wrote it loves me, and asked me to be his wife,” then it
suddenly dawned upon her that his love had been but transitory, he no
longer loved her, or he would have returned to her at her bidding, and
that thought was bitter as death to the proud heart of the girl, who
now loved him with so mad and passionate a love.
Meanwhile, the object of her thoughts was still at the Brent cottage,
at the now deserted Newport, valiantly fighting his way back to life
from the very brink of eternity.
He had had a close call, but his grand physique conquered, and death,
which he so longed for, would not come to him then, and he was forced,
against his most earnest desires, to take up the tangled thread of life
again, and weave it out to the end.
His friends, Hazard Ballou and Jerry Gaines, spent every available hour
that they could with him, when it was possible to run up to Newport.
It was they who first carried to him the news of the wonderful success
of his book.
To their surprise he turned his head wearily away, asking them to
desist from the telling until another time, for he thought he could
sleep. They looked at him, then at each other, in blank amazement. Did
ever a man take wonderful tidings like this in such a manner before,
they queried; and they could not help reproving him on his want of
interest in his wonderful success, which would mean a fortune to him.
John Dinsmore turned his head wearily on his pillow.
“Success and wealth have come to me too late!” he said, bitterly. “A
month ago I would have gone frantic, I think, at such intelligence;
now--well, I can only repeat that, like my uncle’s fortune, it has come
to me too late, boys--too late!”
“Ah, by the way,” cried Jerry Gaines, “speaking of your uncle’s fortune
reminds me of a letter I have in my pocket for you, which came to your
New York address, and instead of forwarding it, waited and brought it,
delaying the delivery of it but a day.”
“If you will read it, and tell me the contents of it, I shall be
obliged to you,” said John, wearily.
“By George, now that I come to remember it, there were two letters for
you which I slipped into my pocket, and now, as I live, I can find but
one of them,” declared Jerry Gaines, much perturbed.
“Do not trouble over it, Jerry,” said Dinsmore. “If it relates to
anything of the least consequence, the writer will be sure to write
again.”
“You are kind to find pardon for me,” returned Gaines, adding,
ruefully: “I shall never forgive myself for not taking better care of
your mail, old fellow, if it turns out that I have mislaid something of
importance to you.”
The truth was, fate had taken charge of the letter in question, which
was the one from Queenie Trevalyn, recalling him, by causing it to slip
through the torn lining of the young reporter’s pocket, to be found
protruding through the black lining of that self-same coat many a long
day later.
Jerry Gaines attended to the commission of opening the remaining
letter mechanically, and as he drew the folded sheet of paper from
the envelope, lo! a photograph rolled forth from it--the portrait of
a very youthful, but a very lovely slip of a girl, and penciled in a
scrawling, irregular, schoolgirl hand, was the name Jess, simply that
and no more.
He handed the photograph to Dinsmore, while Ballou, with the freedom
of an old friend, got up, and coming close to the bedside, looked
curiously over John’s shoulder.
“If this is the writer of the letter, she is certainly a stranger to
me,” remarked Dinsmore, slowly, studying curiously the lovely face
laughing up at him, for the picture represented a girl, not smiling
after the usual fashion, but, indeed, laughing heartily, and with all
her might, straight into your eyes, and challenging an amused smile in
return from even the gravest lips.
She could not be over fifteen or sixteen. The oval face, with its
every dimple displayed, was bewitching, with every promise of future
beauty with a year or two added to the girl’s years.
The eyes were dark, and deliciously roguish in expression, and she wore
the hair which covered the shapely little head in a long braid, tied
with a ribbon, wherever the curling tendrils could be ensnared from
their persistent effort to break into tiny little curls running riot
over the white brow and neck; but the teeth disclosed by that laughing
little mouth--were ever teeth so small and white and altogether
faultless?
“A lovely girl!” said Hazard Ballou, examining the pictured face with
the critical eye of an artist.
“What has this pretty creature to say to me?” said John Dinsmore,
breaking through the apathy which had been wrapped about him like a
mantle up to the present moment.
“The best way to inform you is to read her letter to you,” remarked
Gaines, laconically, quite as curious as the recipient to know the
import of the missive; for four years of life as a reporter on a daily
newspaper, in the metropolis, had stimulated his bump of curiosity, and
he was always in the habit of gratifying it, and ever on the lookout
for anything which savored of a sensation or a mystery.
“Whew!” he broke forth, whistling as his eyes encountered the first
line. “By George, it’s the little Louisiana heiress whom your uncle
has decided you must wed to become his heir--the girl around whom his
fortune is tied, the string to his inheritance, as you phrased it when
we first told you about your uncle’s strange will, Dinsmore.”
“I wouldn’t have to think twice in a case like that!” declared Hazard
Ballou, still thoughtfully and gravely admiring the pictured, merry,
laughing, girlish young face.
“Nor I!” said Jerry Gaines, his whole heart in his eyes. Adding:
“Hang it, how can you be so indifferent, you lucky dog?” turning upon
Dinsmore excitedly.