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!”