looked at her. "Do you suppose there's a chance to beat the thing?" he asked. "I'd not ask you to wait, Pat, but if I only glimpsed a chance--"

"I'll wait. I don't think I could do anything else but wait for you."

"If I only knew what I had to fight!" he whispered. "If I only knew that!"

A sudden memory leaped into Pat's mind. "Nick," she said huskily, "I think I know."

"What do you mean, Pat?"

"It's something Magda--the cook--said to me. It's foolish, superstitious, but Nick, what else can it be?"

"Tell me!"

"Well, she was talking to me yesterday, and she said that when she was a child in the old country, she had seen a man once--" she hesitated--"a man who was possessed by a devil. Nick, I think you're possessed by a devil!"

He stared at her. "Pat," he said hoarsely, "that's--an impossibility!"

"I know, but what else can it be?"

"Out of the Dark Ages," he muttered. "An echo of the Black Mass and witchcraft, but--"

"What did they do," asked the girl, "to people they thought were possessed?"

"Exorcism!" he whispered.

"And how did they--exorcise?"

"I don't know," he said in a low voice. "Pat, that's an impossible idea, but--I don't know!" he ended.

"We'll try," she murmured, still covering his hand with her own. "What else can we do, Nick?"

"What's done I'll do alone, Pat."

"But I want to help!"

"I'll not let you, Dear. I won't have you exposed to a repetition of those indignities, or perhaps worse!"

"I'm not afraid."

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