There was another thing of which Queenie was equally convinced, and
that was that the safest place for Jess, for the present, was beneath
her own roof. John Dinsmore would, of course, never dream of looking
for her there.
She knew full well that he would not come near her home, therefore, she
did not fear a meeting between Raymond Challoner and him.
Queenie was not surprised when Raymond Challoner presented himself
at her home the following afternoon, impatient to know what progress
she was making with her arguments to induce Jess to reconsider her
dismissal of himself and his suit; and very anxious to have an
interview with the girl.
“That will be impossible for the present,” declared Queenie; “for she
has worked herself up into a state bordering almost on hysteria;
indeed, she is so bad that I was obliged to call in a doctor to attend
her, and his instructions were that she must be kept perfectly quiet;
nothing whatever of an exciting nature must disturb her, or the result
would be a serious case of brain fever.”
Raymond Challoner bit his lip with the most intense vexation.
“By the eternal, luck seems to be working dead against me!” he cried.
“I am almost strapped as to cash--I must marry that confounded contrary
girl, and without delay, too, to secure that fortune. You know delays
are dangerous!”
“Am I not equally as anxious? I am in the same position financially as
yourself; my funds are horribly low, and your marrying this girl, and
securing the Dinsmore fortune, which you have promised to divide with
me as compensation for my services, is everything I have to depend
upon; so why should I not expedite matters to the fullest extent of my
power?” she demanded.
“With your woman’s wit, you ought to be able to arrange matters
somehow,” he persisted, doggedly.
“I will do the very best I can; that is all that I can say,” she
responded, and he was obliged to let matters rest in that way. He took
a reluctant leave, with the understanding that he was not to call again
until he was sent for, which Queenie declared should be the first
moment in which she had Jess’ promise that she would see him.
And Queenie meant what she said. For decency’s sake she allowed a week
to pass since she had informed Jess of her husband’s tragic death, ere
she put her scheme in motion.
At the end of that week Queenie took the girl in hand.
“This will never do, my dear,” she said. “You must take the punishment
which has been meted out to you meekly.”
“Punishment!” echoed Jess, putting her dark curls back from her
tear-stained face with her little, trembling hands. “What have I ever
done to offend Heaven, that I should deserve punishment? That is the
wrong word for it, you meant affliction.”
“I meant exactly what I said, my dear,” returned Queenie, softly. “It
is my firm belief that the Lord meant to punish you for flinging aside
so ruthlessly the solemn wishes of the dead!” she added, solemnly and
impressively.
Jess looked up into her face with bewildered, tear-stained eyes,
murmuring faintly:
“Still I do not comprehend.”
“You certainly ought not to need me to refresh your memory in regard to
the fact that you were in solemn duty bound to wed him whom the man who
thought enough of you to leave half of his fortune to desired you to
marry.”
“But I did not love him, Queenie,” sobbed the girl, piteously, “and I
did love the man whom I married.
“Go where I would, his face was always before me; it smiled up at me
from the hearts of the flowers over which I bent, it looked at me from
the dancing waves of the rippling brook. I saw it framed in the fleecy
clouds when I looked up at the blue sky, and from the golden stars when
the night fell, shrouding the world in impenetrable darkness.
“Oh, Queenie, I often wonder if any other girl in this whole wide world
has ever loved as fondly and as dearly as I loved the handsome, noble
gentleman to whom God seemed to consecrate me when I became his bride.
Ah, why should God punish me, and desire me to marry another when I
loved my husband as devotedly as that?”
“God’s motives are not for us to question; it seems that He did,”
replied Queenie, tersely, adding, after a seemingly thoughtful pause:
“Do you know that I think His anger can only be assuaged by your
carrying out His design yet?”
She knew by the bewildered look in Jess’ eyes that she did not in the
least comprehend the hint she had just given her.
“I consider it my duty to speak plainly to you, Jess,” she said. “I
am quite sure that your husband was removed for the purpose of your
carrying out yet the provisions of that will.”
“Oh, no, no, no!” cried the girl, wildly. “I would not marry the best
man that ever walked the earth; for me there is but one love, and
therefore but one husband!”
“There is another matter to be considered,” said Queenie. “Do you want
to go out into the world penniless, and earn your own living, which you
surely must do if you persist in refusing the rich gifts the gods offer
you? It is a question which you must not decide rashly.”
“I do not care for the Dinsmore millions!” sobbed the girl. “I can get
along without them. Please do not say any more to me on the subject,
Queenie, my poor heart is so sore.”
“There is just one thing more that I must call your attention to, which
you seem to have forgotten entirely,” Queenie went on, pitilessly; “and
that is, even if you are perfectly indifferent in the matter, you still
should remember that in pursuing the course you persist in adopting,
you are not only injuring your own prospects, but you are consigning to
a life of misery and toil another, the man whom the elder Mr. Dinsmore
intended should enjoy half of his great fortune.
“Think long and seriously, Jess, ere you consign one whose only fault
is loving you too well to a life of poverty and misery. It would be
better far to give your life up to the noble purpose of making another
happy, even though your heart is not in what you do.
“In a fortnight he will come here to see you, and will ask for your
final answer. I repeat, think long and earnestly ere you say him nay.
He need never know what took place while you were at the farm those
few weeks. In fact, I would counsel that you keep it carefully from
his knowledge. Let that part of your book of life be a sealed chapter,
which no human eyes may scan. Why tell him, and make him miserable,
when silence is wisest and best, since it tends to his contentment and
peace of mind for all time?
“I leave you to think it over carefully, Jess. Surely you are too noble
to consign the one who loves you so well to the bitterest of poverty.
He does not know how to cope with it; he has always looked upon the
Dinsmore fortune as his, some day; therefore he is not equipped to
fight for his daily bread during the remainder of his life. If life
and love are all over for you, consecrate your future to doing good
deeds, and surely this is one.”
So saying, she left the girl to her own pitiful reflections. Can it be
wondered at, by dint of constantly holding this aspect of the case up
before the girl’s troubled eyes, that slowly but surely she began to
influence the girl, who was scarcely more than a child in her ideas,
that it was her duty to sacrifice herself to save the man who was
co-heir to Blackheath Hall from a life of poverty.
It was with many bitter tears that at length Jess sobbed out that she
would do exactly what Queenie advised. Life, hope and love were all
over for her, it did not matter much what her future was.
“Your lover of the old days will be here to-morrow,” announced Queenie,
at length, “and shall I make his heart glad by telling him that you
relent, and that matters will be between you as they were when you were
down on the plantation in Louisiana; that you will meet him as your
affianced husband?”
Jess covered her face with her two little hands, which shook like aspen
leaves, and nodded dumbly. She could not have said “yes” to have saved
her life; she tried to utter the word, but it stuck in her throat and
choked her.