In the parting with her babe she felt free to indulge in more of naturalness. She had confessed a weakness there in the strength of her desire to overcome it. A moment she held the small shade in her arms. But the cling of little arms about her neck choked her with the necessity of untwining them. So trustful, so young, so blameless, to be consigned to punishment! The crush of desolation which pressed hard on her heart might best be lifted by thought of a possible day when she might see her child again--see her with her trust, her youth, her blamelessness eternalized. The precious salvage she consigned to John with not a word of her heartful adjuration that he be good to her, take care of her, teach her that her mother had loved her, even as she had him, her best beloved, far too well to have and hold. No more did she risk the aside which she wished with soldier Sam, in which to advise that he trust all his dread knowledge to John Cabot. She felt sure, however, that he would do so of his own accord. Once in the Fields, his object would be her own in sending him. Gallant himself, he soon would recognize gallantry and would give his confidence to John. The King was issuing orders. An adequate guard was to serve as escort to the Elysian boundary, taking a wide detour to escape the shade patrol. The fact that such a transfer never before had been made need not concern them. The love-hound had blazed a trail from Elysium down. Let him blaze another from Gehenna up. They were to start at once. Only John Cabot made his exit loathfully. After the others had preceded him through the light-riven curtain, he paused; turned. Dolores knew that to the last he hoped of her. A gesture, a whisper, a sigh would have recalled him to full faith. He had meant what he said. Gladly would he have exchanged or shared her fate until that dim-distant day when justice was to take the universe. But she did not make the gesture, vent the whisper, breathe the sigh. Rather, she forced the false laugh which that hour had stood her in such good stead and turned, affecting to think him gone, to her Satanic suitor. Seductively she leaned, as if to consummate the caress which John’s arrival had interrupted so short and yet so long a while before. At the downward swish of the hangings, however, she drew back. The lilt of her laugh was lost in the realization that he who had come to find her had left her, lost. More moan than mirth it sounded at the thought that no lightning flash or whip of wind in the storm-ridden air outside could scourge him as had her treachery. At her change of attitude, Satan sat back and watched her with unsmiling scrutiny. “It is not too late to call them back if you regret the terms of our wager. ‘Anything’--wasn’t that your pledge?” “But I do not wish them back. I am glad--so glad to be rid of them.” “And I. You acknowledge that I have won the bet?” “Yes, Your Lowness. You have--won.”