Like a spell the summer night was breathless and Sard was aware of heat and suffocation in her own throat; the telephone began ringing, a man's voice speaking with the Judge. Her father's questions and commands were issued curt, annoyed, angry and then finally hushed and with a knife-like anxiety the girl flew to the head of the lower stair; there were slow footsteps coming up into the upper hall. The light fell upon a stretcher,--Dunstan--his boyish head bloody, his mouth slightly open. Two men climbing gently with something collapsed and, stricken in their arms, the little huddled form of Minga. Suddenly from the kitchen Dora's piercing wail, "Terry! Terry!" CHAPTER XXV THE MEDE AND THE PERSIAN The handsome man and woman that drove up to the great door of the Bogarts' home got out with a leisureliness that seemed the result of good nerve structure rather than deliberate intention. Whatever the anxiety in their hearts they did not show it in gestures or voices. Mrs. Gerould, however, kept rather intent eyes upon the electric bell; her gloved finger pushed; she pulled the scarf around her shoulders with a little nervous twitch. Her husband flicked some dust from his shoes. The two talked in low voices until the Bogarts' cook opened the door; as they realized the absence of pretty Dora, their grave faces grew more apprehensive. Cook was expansive; she smoothed the sleeve of Mrs. Gerould's silk motor coat. "Ye ain't been worried about Minga, Mrs. Gerould? There's nothing the matter with her, Praise be God!--only the fright, and they've given her somethin' to sleep on. But him! Oh, it seems that I can hear him callin' me now--Mr. Dunstan--our bye--it was me he was always teasin' and raisin' the divil wit." The cook trembled; she burst out again: "Gawd love him, the poor child wanted to save our Terry, poor bye--now that wasn't no way to help, was it? Now, Mr. Dunstan's gone and got the law onto himself, he's under arrest! But them two," the cook wiped her streaming eyes, "their little hearts was broke over Terry bein' in the jug, and now look at it--Terry's dead! Yes'm," cook's motherly heart broke over it, her head went down into her red hands. "The guards was after them when they got him in the car, and fired. Yes'm, the poor boy's gorn. Well, he's better aff, that's what I tell Dora, he's better aff! I keep tellin' her that," blubbered cook. The Mede and Persian looked increasingly grave. The telegram had been telephoned to them and they had stepped into a car and driven out at once without much sense of tragedy--before this the two had been hurried to scenes of Minga's dénouements, expecting some result of physical rashness, of too much dancing, or a bad sore throat and fever, some predicament of finance easy of rescue, but here was a prank with more serious development and one tragic result. Minga and Dunce had played for high stakes this time; perhaps their playing was forever over!