The look of sympathetic interest with which she accompanied her words was a poor sedative to the already overmastering passions of the artist, but by a supreme effort he recovered himself to say:
“No, no; it is better that I do not pass so much of my time there. I have applied myself too closely of late. Are you ready, lady, for the sitting?”
“Yes,” said she. “I have been preparing for you. Follow me.” She led the way through several magnificent apartments to one even more splendid than the rest. “In this room,” she continued, “I would have the portrait painted, and as a setting can you not paint a portion of the room itself?”
Friedrich assented in an absent manner and taking up his palette was about to give his fair subject directions to seat herself to the best advantage when he saw she had already done so, with a pose and expression that might have delighted even a dispassionate artist’s eye—if, indeed, any eye could gaze dispassionately on the Lady Elsa Herwehe. She had arranged the drapery of her dull-red silken robe so as to display to the best advantage—and yet not ostentatiously—the outlines of her graceful figure, and her dark hair fell in a shadowy mass over her shoulders. Her face bore a listless and far-away expression—was it natural, or only assumed for artistic effect? Friedrich knew not, but it made her seem superhuman. The artist took up his brush but his brain reeled and his hand trembled.
“You are surely ill,” exclaimed Lady Elsa and would have called a servant, but a gesture from Friedrich detained her.
“No, lady, I am not ill”—and losing all control of himself he went madly on—“but I cannot paint the features of an angel. O, Lady Elsa, if it were the last words I should utter I must declare that I love you. The moment I saw you a tenfold fury seized my soul. I never loved before and I cannot stem the torrent now. O, lady, the difference between our stations in life is wide—but, after all, it may soon be otherwise; I have talent and the world will give me fame. This love in a day has become my life and what is mere breath without life? If you scorn me my life is gone”—
The Lady Elsa, who was at first overcome by astonishment, recovered herself to interrupt him. “Peace, you foolish babbler,” cried she. “You came to paint my likeness, not to make love to me. If you cannot do your task, cease your useless vaporings and depart. Think you the daughter of an historic line that stretches back to Hengist could throw herself away on a poor portrait painter, the son of an ignorant peasant? Take you to your business or leave me.”
To Friedrich every word was a dagger-thrust. He seemed about to reply when—as awakening from a dreadful dream—he rushed from the apartment and fled in wild haste down the stony path to the town. Locking himself in his studio he threw himself on the couch in an ecstacy of despair and passed the greater part of the night in sleepless agony. From sheer exhaustion he fell into a troubled slumber towards morning—if such a hideous semi-conscious state may be called slumber. In his dream he saw a host of demons and in their midst a veiled figure at the sight of which his heart leaped, for it seemed the Lady Elsa. She approached and offered him her hand, veiled beneath the folds of her robe; when he had clasped it he stood face to face, not with the lady of his love, but with the sin-hardened and sardonic features of Gottfried Winstedt, the old soldier-comrade whose dreadful fate he had forgotten! With a wild start he awoke and his thoughts immediately flashed to the strange casket the old man had given him. The words of that anomaly of a man came to him with an awful significance: “When thou shalt so desire some earthly thing that thou wouldst barter thine eternal welfare to secure it, thou mayest open this casket.”
Fearing that his curiosity might some time overcome him and dreading the threat of old Gottfried, he had buried the casket in a lonely spot and quite forgotten it. His dream recalled it to his memory at a time when no price would be too great to pay for the love of Elsa Herwehe. He sprang from his couch and hastened to the secluded corner of his father’s garden, where he had buried the mysterious casket in a wrapping of coarse sack-cloth. Returning to his room and carefully barring the doors he opened the box with little difficulty. It contained a roll of manuscript and a single sheet of yellow parchment. Friedrich unrolled this and a small scrap of paper fell at his feet. It bore these words in faded red letters:
“Thou who art willing to bear the consequence, read; the incantation on the parchment, if repeated in a solitary spot at midnight, will bring the presence of the Prince of Evil, though thou canst not know the meaning of the words. He will give thee thy desire at the price of thy soul. But beware—thou hast yet the power to recede.”