"No. Horrible, cruel, bestial, devilishly cunning, evil--but not
insane. I don't know what it is, Pat. I know that the fight has to be
made by me alone. There's nothing, nobody in the world, that can help."
"Nick!" she wailed.
"I'm sorry, Pat dear. You understand now why I was so reluctant to fall
in love with you. I was afraid to love you; now I know I was right."
"Nick!" she cried, then paused hopelessly. After a moment she
continued, "Yesterday I was determined to forget you, and now--now I
don't care if this whole tale of yours is a mesh of fantastic lies, I
love you! I'd love you even if your real self were that--that other
creature, and even if I knew that this was just a trap. I'd love you
anyway."
"Pat," he said seriously, "don't you believe me? Why should I offer to
give you up if this were--what you said? Wouldn't I be pleading for
another chance, making promises, finding excuses?"
"Oh, I believe you, Nick! It isn't that; I was just thinking how
strange it is that I could hate you so two nights past and love you so
tonight."
"Oh God, Pat! Even you can't know how much I love you; and to win you
and then be forced to give you up--" He groaned.
The girl reached out her hand and covered his; it was the first time
during the evening that she had touched him, and the feel of his flesh
sent a tingle through her. She was miserably distraught.
"Honey," she murmured brokenly. "Nick, Honey."
He looked at her. "Do you suppose there's a chance to beat the thing?"
he asked. "I'd not ask you to wait, Pat, but if I only glimpsed a
chance--"
"I'll wait. I don't think I could do anything else but wait for you."
"If I only knew what I had to fight!" he whispered. "If I only knew
that!"
A sudden memory leaped into Pat's mind. "Nick," she said huskily, "I
think I know."
"What do you mean, Pat?"
"It's something Magda--the cook--said to me. It's foolish,
superstitious, but Nick, what else can it be?"
"Tell me!"
"Well, she was talking to me yesterday, and she said that when she
was a child in the old country, she had seen a man once--" she
hesitated--"a man who was possessed by a devil. Nick, I think you're
possessed by a devil!"