Perhaps the time would be shorter than General Cummings feared or His Majesty hoped. Perhaps The Call would sound before he found her out. And if she was insincere toward her enemy, it would be that she might be the more sincere toward her friends. A judge of Earth had absolved her of guilt at first sight because he saw in her face that her motive was innocent. Surely the Great Judge would be as keen.
As for the unspeakable thing known, without being known, as The Great Intention, that also might she delay and divert. On Earth she had been called a menace to men. If wiles enough remained at her command, now that she needed them to save rather than destroy herself—if the value of her favors did not decrease with deliberate use of them—she soon would have the soldier messenger set free. With or without him, however, she would find ways to weaken the King’s hold upon his military. While Satan was giving the whole of his intelligence to inciting riot among the mixed races of her own America she would be sowing schism among the condemned who had been drafted and branded into the Hadean armies.
The truth ought to be spreading propaganda. With what little she could disseminate on Earth and the much she must begin at once to spread in Gehenna——
Adeline’s tap on her door announced that what couldn’t happen had happened—that she had caught up with the elusive to-morrow. But sufficient unto the seventh day was the enlightenment thereof.
Dolores was ready at last with her answer.
CHAPTER XXVI
Soft as the light shed from Beyond, a breeze blew over the inner fields of Elysium. Soft also was the whispered gratitude of the olive trees and palms; soft the smiles of the flowers of lilies and of Lebanon, of celestial roses, of amorant and of rustling immortelles. The ribbon-like stream that bounded the emerald velvet skirts of the meadow-land fluttered from the buoyant breath.
Of the trees, only a spruce atop a nearby knoll failed to sway. Too heavy was it with birds. Although its branches down-hung dejectedly, from its tip waved skyward a tuneful panegyric. So full was the chorus, it seemed that every songster must be voicing a heart full of joy. Yet one there was that did not sing, a yellow, strongly visible atom of immortality perched upon a low-swung twig.
His head was perked to one side. His round, quick eyes were fixed on the glittering hazes that hung, like veils of silver-mesh veiling countless finer veils of golden threads, before the Source of Light. He was looking and listening. An excited chirp escaped him. With the motions of a bird unused to the exercise of his wings, he half hopped, half flew from his branch to the sward and started with what speed he might across the greening pastures.
One spiritualized to follow the hope of so small a shade would have seen turning back from a company of spirits, then advancing into the radiant distances, the form of a child—a boy-soul of some nine years. With an odd, slithering sort of walk, he retraced his steps. Now and then he would stop and, shading his eyes, would peer in the general direction of the Mystery Gate. He, too, appeared to be listening and looking.