“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. CHAPTER X. AFTER THIRTEEN YEARS. “It is so wide, this great world vaulted o’er By the blue sky clasping dark shore to shore, It is too wide--it is too wide for me! Would God that it were narrowed to a grave, And I slept quiet, naught hid with me save The love that was too great--too great for me.” That brief letter from John Dinsmore created no end of excitement at Blackheath Hall. After an absence of five-and-twenty years the heir, whom she well remembered as a handsome, high-spirited, blue-eyed lad, was coming home at last. All the old family servants were startled out of the lethargy into which they had fallen during the long years since a master had been at the old hall to rule them--most of them but barely recalled the owner, Mr. George Dinsmore, a bachelor, and the most extensive plantation owner in all Louisiana. Mrs. Bryson, the housekeeper, well remembered a day when he called her to his study and said: “I am going away on a journey. I may return in a month, or it may be a year; perhaps even longer. During my absence, though it be long or short, I want everything at the old plantation to go on the same--you understand?” The good woman courtesied, and answered: “Everything shall go on the same, sir, though you may be away weeks, months, or years.” Thus he took his departure, and no one knew his destination. It was five long years ere Mrs. Bryson heard from the master of Blackheath Hall. At that time she received a letter from him bearing the foreign postmark of London. After giving minute directions concerning the plantation, the letter wound up with this singular postscript: “My nephew--who will one day be my heir, presumably--together with his tutor, will be at Blackheath Hall for a short stay. I leave it to you to make their stay as pleasant as possible.” Mrs. Bryson carried out her master’s wishes to the letter. When the English tutor and the little lad arrived the hospitable doors of Blackheath Hall were thrown open wide to welcome them.