“To appease his annoyance, we agreed that he should meet you and Lawyer Abbot at the first junction the other side of Caldwell, and finish the journey with you.”
It was little wonder, after reading that, that Jess had consented at once to wed the man of her own choice when he had asked her to do so, and made no demurrer when he declared the marriage must take place without delay—that marriage that seemed now almost like a dream to Jess as the train bore her quickly away from her newly made husband.
Her thoughts were so confused she did not realize what she had said or done that he should get so angry with her on that homeward walk. It was the last drop in her cup of sorrow when he parted so coldly from her, without one good-by kiss, one tender word of farewell.
Jess had watched the tall figure out of sight, and then gave way to the bitterest, most passionate weeping that her girlish eyes had ever known.
But to return at this point to Ray Challoner, who was passing himself off so successfully as John Dinsmore, the heir prospective of Blackheath Hall.
When he had returned to the hall from his hasty trip to New Orleans, it was with the full determination of pushing the marriage forward to a climax as quickly as possible. His rage knew no bounds when he learned that fate had served him so dastardly a trick as to send Jess away on a visit.
He thanked his stars, however, that the trip north, to the home of Queenie Trevalyn, in New York, had been intercepted.
He was quick to plan, and equally quick to execute, and he determined that Jess should never get to the home of his former sweetheart, Queenie Trevalyn, if by human ingenuity he could prevent it, for it would never, never do for Jess to tell them that she was soon to marry the hero of that past summer at Newport; for, if she were to describe him, the description would be so vastly different from what they knew John Dinsmore to be, that investigations would be sure to be set on foot, and the wild plot of Raymond Challoner to win the Dinsmore millions would be frustrated—nipped, as it were, in the bud.
He remembered Queenie Trevalyn’s parting words to him:
“From this hour we are bitter enemies, Mr. Challoner. Enemies to the death. You have insulted my pride, and the day will come when you will bitterly rue it!”