“Let’s see just what he testified, this brotherly judge. Oh yes; ‘The accused did bring the Trent girl to me, but to let me judge of her guilt. She looked so pure that I was not convinced and stood, as I stand now, on my right to judge. If fault there was, that fault was mine.’ After that, there was nothing for the Bar Association to do but open their arms to the brother they had misjudged.”
“I am glad,” Dolores said. “For a time I blamed Rufus Holt for my sufferings. But he tried to be a true friend to John.”
“I dare say,” sneered Satan as he opened the station door, “and made a mess of it, as true friends usually do. At that, you’ve got a good start with him and can use him in our new campaign.”
Within, an operator wearing a receiving head-dress, sat among his instruments. Beside a window which commanded a view of the entrance, His Highness placed a chair for her.
“The gates will open soon,” he advised. “Watch the new arrivals trickle in and call me in case you catch sight of your John. I am pardonably impatient to meet him.”
To sink into the chair was a relief. At sight of the preparations outside which the pigmy ushers were making for the reception of the evening’s recruits, Dolores’ mental pulse accelerated. She strove for the strong thoughts which lately had sustained her and tried to keep out of her expression the pinch of hope long deferred.
“Are these likenesses, sweet Grief?”
Turning, she found Satan at her elbow, offering her half-a-dozen sepia-like photographs. She took them; looked; exclaimed:
“John—wonderful! And this is Catherine at her best. How splendid of dear Clarke Shayle! Rufus Holt, too. Have you had them made for me? But why include these of Vincent Seff and Dr. Willard? I’d rather forget them.”
“Does the murderer forget the features of the slain? Nay, fair assassin, you won’t need this collection for your dressing table to remember your victims. These are stills selected from our stock of life-films. I am glad you pronounce them such likenesses, for I’m sending them up to old Mors of the Mystery Gate to hang in his rogues’ gallery.”