CHAPTER XLIV.
THE WAYS OF PROVIDENCE.
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.