"It is ever a reminder of one's mortality," the young man said.
"It is Man in his true aristocratic state," he said.
"And yet at his most humble," he said.
"And now I will leave," he said. "I hope you have seen the light, and will no longer impose your crude, cruel joke on those who trust you for a moment's peace."
He stood up. "I hardly think that it was the work of the Devil, however, as the lady seemed to think—"
A cloud seemed to come over the sun—but there were no clouds, so perhaps the sun dimmed. The birds in the trees were suddenly silent. Even the rustling leaves seemed to pause. It grew still darker, and a chill breeze sprang up.
A head, whose face was dark and sharp and saturnine, appeared in the center of the yard.
As the young man and the three old men watched, a tall, dark, gaunt man in a neatly tailored black suit rose from the ground and stood eying them mockingly.
"Wasn't it?" he said in a thin, dry voice, and laughed.