After a while he looked up at Rougemont, who was leaning over his shoulder, and whose features were wrinkled with a derisive smile.
"Then you are the Fiend?" he cried.
"If you will have it so—certainly," replied the other.
"You are Satan in the form of the man I once knew," cried Auriol. "Avaunt! I will have no dealings with you."
"I thought you wiser than to indulge in such idle fears, Darcy," rejoined the other. "Granting even your silly notion of me to be correct, why need you be alarmed? You are immortal."
"True," rejoined Auriol thoughtfully; "but yet——"
"Pshaw!" rejoined the other, "sign, and have done with the matter."
"By this compact I am bound to deliver a victim—a female victim—whenever you shall require it," cried Auriol.
"Precisely," replied the other; "you can have no difficulty in fulfilling that condition."
"But if I fail in doing so, I am doomed——"