She felt her fingers caught in a cruel grasp. Her joy-dewed glance was scorched by his malevolence. Back drew the sneering lips over white, fang-like teeth. “You really think he’ll draw a ticket down here--that hero? Fool, you have too much faith in the judgments of men!” With repression more ominous than any outburst could have been, he turned on his heel. “Come home,” he said. As has so many a submissive woman soul before her, Dolores tried to hide within her heart her blissful expectation. But she trod on air as she followed out of the stadium. Splendidly John had gone through the formality of lifting the mortgage contracted at his birth--that debt of life put upon all, which may be paid only in the coinage of death. Soon, now, he would come to her. CHAPTER XXV It was “afterward.” There could be no doubt of that. His Highness, so far as Dolores was concerned, had retired into one of his silences. He must be enraged with her for her interference in the pool play. But for what could he be waiting? True, the concession for which she had offered to pay any price was no longer an issue. There was no need now for her to be put in spirit connection with Earth, even had she not discovered that her own concentrated will could accomplish the projection--that the dead might return to their quondam surroundings, ruling and being ruled through senses stronger far than physical. Could she sooner have realized this of the strange laws which governed her present state of existence, what heart-hurts of foreboding and regret she might have spared John and herself! Not for an hour of the days and nights since the failure of that “Greatest Show” had she forgotten that the time set for her own answer as to her fate was approaching. On this afternoon--the sixth of those allotted “seven days of disgrace”--she felt herself no nearer decision than before the end of her séances. She tried not to dread. Dread shriveled the soul; would mar her progress. And she was determined now to progress, despite her sentence to Gehenna. Hope was the immortal soul of love. Once John had joined her, no law of the lowlands could kill their hope. So the girl-shade was happy in her deplorable state as she never had been happy when the gateway of the mortal world had opened to her youthful tread. He whom she loved loved her. That was the lyric of her song of the soul. Deep-chording into the accompaniment was her absolute knowledge of his worthiness. Expectancy played a running obbligato through each measure, with here and there a trill of errant joy. He was coming, John; must by now be nearing the end of that long, drear journey from Earth to Shadow Land. Every hour helped now. From far away, whispers of the altruistic philosophy she had taught young Jack Cabot penetrated her moods. How better prepare for the eventualities of to-morrow than by good cheer to-day? Since all the to-morrows must come disguised as to-days, she would make the best of the here and now.