“Oh! no. I get a devil.”
“You! Why, you're out of a fairy-tale!”
“It comes from Daddy—only he doesn't know, because he's a perfect saint; but I know he's had a devil somewhere, or he couldn't be the saint he is.”
“H'm!” said Fort. “That's very deep: and I believe it's true—the saints did have devils.”
“Poor Daddy's devil has been dead ages. It's been starved out of him, I think.”
“Does your devil ever get away with you?”
Noel felt her cheeks growing red under his stare, and she turned to the window:
“Yes. It's a real devil.”
Vividly there had come before her the dark Abbey, and the moon balancing over the top of the crumbling wall, and the white owl flying across. And, speaking to the air, she said:
“It makes you do things that you want to do.”