The first question that John Dinsmore asked of them, when they met
at the restaurant an hour later, was what success they had met with,
adding that he could hardly contain himself and control his nerves, his
anxiety was so intense.
“Rome was not built in a day, my dear fellow,” responded Ballou,
adding: “By this time to-morrow we hope to answer you more
satisfactorily.”
“You mean to say that you have found trace of her?” cried John
Dinsmore. “Do not keep me in suspense, tell me at once.”
“On or before this time to-morrow, we hope to bring you face to face
with your little Jess--mind, I use the word ‘hope.’ That must suffice
for the present, my boy,” repeated Ballou.
Just as Dinsmore was about to make a response, his attention was
attracted by a young man who had just entered, and who had deposited
himself in a seat at an opposite table.
One glance at his face, and John Dinsmore recognized him instantly as
Raymond Challoner, his foe of those other days, when they had fought
that duel for the favor of fair, false, fickle Queenie Trevalyn.
As Challoner’s eyes met his own, John Dinsmore saw there was no gleam
of recognition in them. Raymond Challoner did not know him, and he was
quite as well satisfied with this turn of affairs.
Following the direction of their friend’s earnest gaze, both the artist
and the reporter beheld Raymond Challoner at the selfsame moment.
“It must be that fate is playing directly into our hands!” whispered
Jerry Gaines to Ballou, when John Dinsmore’s attention was directed in
another direction.
John had noticed that his two friends recognized Challoner; but, save
a meaning half smile, he took no other notice of the other’s near
presence, and was glad that they seemed to ignore him.
Underneath their nonchalant manner, both Jerry Gaines and Ballou were
intensely excited; and when Raymond Challoner arose to quit the place,
some half an hour or so later, Gaines made a hurried excuse to leave
his two friends, and passed out hurriedly in Challoner’s wake; and
Ballou was thankful that John Dinsmore had not the slightest suspicion
that there was anything on foot in that direction.
At that selfsame hour, little Jess was sobbing her heart out in
Queenie’s boudoir.
She had promised to wed the man who represented himself to her to be
John Dinsmore on the morrow--ay, had promised to link her fate for weal
or for woe with a man whom she detested more and more each time she saw
him.
“If it were not a sin for which God would never, never forgive me, I
would end it all by taking my life here and now!” she moaned, clinching
her hands together so tightly that the pink nails cut the tender flesh;
but the pain in her heart was so severe, she never even felt the pain
of the self-inflicted wound.
Queenie was purposely keeping out of her way, for she did not care to
go over the ground that the marriage-to-be was all wrong--“all wrong
and terrible,” as Jess would pitifully express it. She had given her
consent, that was enough for Queenie; she never stopped to ask herself
how it was to end.
By this marriage, Raymond Challoner, masquerading under the name of
John Dinsmore, would gain possession of the Dinsmore millions, would
turn them into cash within a week’s time, and hand her over her share
of the cash for her share in bringing the marvelously daring scheme
about. Further than this she did not care to look.
Of course, there would be a terrible reckoning between the real and
the false heir, when the former turned up; but Queenie was content to
let them fight it out as they saw fit, as long as she had her share of
the money. She would go abroad, and in the mad whirl of Parisian life
would try to drown her fatal love for John Dinsmore, who had flung her
proffered love back into her face with such scorn.
By parting him effectually from the girl he loved, and bringing the
girl within prison walls on the grave charge of bigamy, when at last
he should find her, was revenge enough for even as sinister an arch
plotter as herself.
She realized that there would be a stormy scene between Challoner and
herself on account of her not telling him of the sudden appearance of
John Dinsmore, whom he confidently believed dead, and therefore out of
his way; and, most of all, that he had a legal claim upon the little
heiress of Blackheath Hall.
She had not even a spark of pity in her hardened heart for the wretched
young girl who was weeping her eyes out in her boudoir upstairs. She
gloated, rather, over the misery of the girl who had won the love of
the only man on earth whom she would ever care for.
“Let her cry!” muttered Queenie, hoarsely, as she paced up and down;
“all the grief she could know in a lifetime could not equal the
poignant misery I endured in the one moment John Dinsmore spurned me
from him, declaring that he would not divorce that girl and wed me for
all the wealth of the Indies--ay, to save his life, even, if it came
to that. Some day he shall learn that it was my hand that shaped this
affair, and brought the matter to a climax, and then he may, perhaps,
recall the lines of the poet who has said--and, ah, how truly:
“‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned!’”
Queenie did not seek her boudoir until a late hour, feeling sure that
Jess would not be there by that time, a surmise which proved to be
quite correct. The poor child had gone slowly to her own apartment,
feeling wretched beyond words, and yet the morrow would usher in her
wedding day.
She threw herself upon her couch, just as she was, and thus she passed
the dreariest hours she had ever known. She wished that the morrow
would never dawn, and then, worn out with intense grief, she finally
fell into a deep and troubled sleep.
She dreamed she was roaming through the meadows fragrant with odorous
blossoms, by the side of him whom she loved; she stepped across a
tiny thread of a purling brook to gather blossoms which grew upon the
other side of it, when suddenly the little stream widened between
them, becoming a mighty cataract of water, a roaring river, which no
one could ford; and they were driven farther and farther asunder by
the oncoming waters, until they were lost to each other’s sight in the
darkness of the night which fell about them.
And, holding out her arms, and calling upon his name with mighty,
piercing cries, which should have rent the very vault of heaven which
bent above her, Jess awoke, to find the maid standing beside her couch,
with uplifted hands and an expression of horror on her face.
“What! seek your couch like this!” the girl was exclaiming, in
amazement. “Oh, miss, why did you not call me to aid you, if you were
too tired to disrobe? And this your wedding day! Why, you look worn
out! Let me fetch you a cup of coffee, and help you to arrange your
toilet. Why, your hands are as cold as the snow outside! Are you ill?”
Jess looked up at her with her great, dark, troubled eyes.
“Yes--no!” she muttered, incoherently.
“Do let me help you, miss!” entreated the maid. “Do not send me from
you; you actually look as though you were going to have a spell of
sickness. It is time to dress for the ceremony--that is the message of
my mistress sent me to tell you. You will have barely time to eat your
breakfast and get into your wedding gown ere the bridegroom and the
coach will be at the door.”
“I wish it were for the grave that I am about to robe myself,” thought
Jess; but she said no more to the maid, who insisted on remaining with
her and assisting her.
Jess pushed away the tempting little repast of bird on toast, fresh
rolls, fruit and fragrant coffee which was set before her; she could
not eat a morsel, or swallow a drop had her very life depended upon it.
“Take it away, Marie,” she said. “It seems as though I could never eat
anything again.”
“What a wonderful thing love is, when it makes a girl feel like
that--nervous and all broken up--on her wedding day,” mused the maid,
wondering when the handsome young artist and his pleasant companion
would make good their promise to call. One thing she had noticed and
thought long and earnestly about, and that was that they only cared to
linger while she was talking to them about her mistress’ guest, Miss
Jess; when she persisted in changing the conversation, they had taken
sudden leave.
“Everybody who sees her goes wild over her beauty,” mused the maid,
gazing at the girl sitting before her, with eyes that were certainly
jealous ones, “and, somehow, I shall be very glad when she marries
and goes away from here. Who knows but what my two new friends were
enamored of her, too? The more I come to look back over their questions
and words, the more it looks like that to me.”
She had little time to follow up the train of her reflections, however,
for time was fleeting. It wanted but fifteen minutes now to the time
when the handsome, fair-haired gentleman whom Jess was to wed would
come for her.
“Ah, here he is now!” she exclaimed, as the sound of a peal at the
front doorbell fell upon her ear.
An instant later Jess recognized the voice of her bridegroom-to-be in
the lower corridor, and at that instant Queenie, gowned and bonneted,
fluttered into the room, exclaiming:
“All is in readiness, Jess, except yourself. Hurry, my love. It is
unlucky to delay the marriage ceremony a moment beyond the appointed
time.”