“It is best that I should travel about for a little while, at least,” ruminated John Dinsmore, long after his tried and true friends had left him; “for the reason that my soul is filled with such bitter unrest that I will find bearing the burden of life more and more intolerable as the weeks roll on.
“Nearly a month has passed, and in a few short weeks more Ray Challoner will lead the only girl I shall ever love to the altar, for I heard her promise to be his bride two months from that day. Those were the cruel words which broke my heart as I listened to them, unable to speak or move, or make my presence known on the other side of those broad palms which screened me from my faithless idol’s sight.
“When the marriage occurs, I want to be so far away that no intelligence of it can reach me; for God knows, strong man though I am, I think I should go mad to hear or read of it.
“Heaven pity a man who loves a girl as I have loved, and always will love, Queenie Trevalyn.
“God! why were women made so beautiful, to ensnare the hearts of men, only to cast them aside as playthings of the hour?
“I know her to be a frivolous coquette, a girl without a soul, a girl who loves wealth above everything else earthly; but for all that I worship her still, and her image will be enshrined in my heart until the breath leaves my body, and death ends it all.”
And as he uttered the words he meant every one of them, little knowing what fate had in store for him, and it was well that he did not.
A week later John Dinsmore set out on his Southern journey, his two friends accompanying him to the train to see him off.
They would not have said “good-by” so cheerfully, had they known all that was to happen ere they beheld his face again—ay, they would have held him back at any cost.