Margot’s hand went up the wall a little way toward the crucifix, then slipped back with fumbling fingers.
“Lord ... Lord!” she whispered hoarsely, “give me my heart’s desire!”
“And what is your heart’s desire?”
“That my daughter, Gabrielle, should be white to all eternity! All that I have, and all that I am, will I give, ... yea, for this would I give my soul.”
Satan smiled.
“Then lay down your burden, my daughter; you shall have your heart’s desire!”
Margot, with a sobbing cry, laid down her life’s unbearable burden at the feet of the Prince of the Powers of Darkness.
By his eternal damnation he swore she should have her heart’s desire; by her rejected salvation she swore to abide by the covenant.
“Consummatum est!” he said, and was gone on the black blast.
The candles sent up a thin flare of flame and smoke, and went out in utter darkness. Crouched on the floor against the wall Margot still knelt in a stupor. A rat came out of a hole in the wall and gnawed at her rosary. Dawn came in at the windows; the twilit gray grew pink. The walls were blotched and spotted; everything exhaled an odor of mildew; Margot still huddled upon the floor beneath the crucifix; over her head the crucified Christ hung mute in His agony.