She had pledged—herself. Her two hands slipped within his and clung, palm to palm. They and her voice shook with loathing which she prayed he might mistake for the tremors of love.
“Dear, dear Devil,” she begged him.
His answer was in terms of action. He returned to the dais and seated himself in the throne-chair. He bade the guard unhand their prisoner and sent the dwarfs to summon those whose release had been stipulated by the famed siren as her price. From a jewel-box he selected a fillet of pearls supporting a single, magnificent drop of light, red as a tear of blood. This he placed upon Dolores’ night-black hair. It was, he made formal announcement, her betrothal crown.
Only John Cabot failed to salaam before the queen-elect. Straight to her he strode; bent that only she might hear his suppressed appeal.
“Do you expect me to believe in your inconstancy?” he asked. “What force has crushed your courage, that you hesitate to trust your fate to me? Because I seemed to fail you on Earth, do you fear that I shall do so in this inter-world? Is there no voice in your heart to tell you how gladly I should have forfeited my passport to the Fields to spare you this profanation? They say that Shadow Land is only the waiting place. Wait with me, Dolores. Don’t cast yourself too low for later recall.”
The persistence of his faith both shamed and blessed the spirit-girl. Evidently he was struggling against the influence of mal-appearances. How could she have doubted such absolving love? For herself, surely her Hell was the there and the now. She must remember that his safety and that of the hapless atom born of their passion hung in the balance. Yet even him and their babe she must have sacrificed, if necessary, for the greater issue. The fate of the Universe, which the Maker seemed to have forgot, depended upon the pseudo-treachery of her looks and speech.
So far her determination had proved strong as desperate. What that victory were defeat? What that she slew this sturdy love of him she so longingly loved? The issue she must not—dared not forget. To protect the great heart of John Cabot from those thoughts of despair which, like ceaseless drops of water on a stone, in time must wear away his hope; to spare him who had defied the first law of Mystery Land the realization of his own futility in the Lane of Labors; to keep his forehead clean of that brand more significant than the brand of Cain—the hate-sign of the Hadean hordes; in saving him to send him as her messenger to warn the Earth-blest of the Castling’s contemplated drive; through him to reach the ear of One said to be omnipotent and arouse Him from His lax protectorate——
Perhaps, if That Day was saved to righteousness, He would be told of her and how she had tried to do her part. As yesterday and to-day were so small a fraction of Eternity, with all life’s reparations possible in the vast vacuum of to-morrow, justice yet might be meted to Dolores.
His Majesty, she knew, had attended each word of John’s plea. A single fault in the play of her part and her partial success would end in failure. Not long enough for one of his dart-like thoughts must she consider the soul-hurt to herself. She, whom so often he had twitted for her simplicity, had pitted her intelligence against the Master Mind. Far better not to have attempted the deceit if she did not deceive.
John she silenced with a mocking laugh. His amazement she answered with assumed contempt. His protest she cut short with ridicule.