Pat opened her eyes reluctantly, with the impression that something unpleasant awaited her return to full consciousness. Something, as yet she could not recall just what, had happened to her; she was not even sure where she was awakening.
However, her eyes surveyed her own familiar room; there opposite the bed grinned the jade Buddha on his stand on the mantel—the one that Nick had—Nick! A mass of troubled, terrible recollections thrust themselves suddenly into consciousness. She visioned a medley of disturbing pictures, as yet disconnected, unassorted, but waiting only the return of complete wakefulness. And she realized abruptly that her head ached miserably, that her mouth was parched, that twinges of pain were making themselves evident in various portions of her anatomy. She turned her head and caught a glimpse of a figure at the bed-side; her startled glance revealed Dr. Horker, sitting quietly watching her.
"Hello, Doctor," she said, wincing as her smile brought a sharp pain from her lips. "Or should I say, Good morning, Judge?"
"Pat!" he rumbled, his growling tones oddly gentle. "Little Pat! How do you feel, child?"
"Fair," she said. "Just fair. Dr. Carl, what happened to me last night? I can't seem to remember—Oh!"
A flash of recollection pierced the obscure muddle. She remembered now—not all of the events of that ghastly evening, but enough. Too much!
"Oh!" she murmured faintly. "Oh, Dr. Carl!"
"Yes," he nodded. "'Oh!'—and would you mind very much telling me what that 'Oh' of yours implies?"
"Why—". She paused shuddering, as one by one the events of that sequence of horrors reassembled themselves. "Yes, I'd mind very much," she continued. "It was nothing—" She turned to him abruptly. "Oh, it was, though, Dr. Carl! It was horrible, unspeakable, incomprehensible!—But I can't talk about it! I can't!"
"Perhaps you're right," said the Doctor mildly. "Don't you really want to discuss it?"
"I do want to," admitted the girl after a moment's reflection. "I want to—but I can't. I'm afraid to think of all of it."
"But what in Heaven's name did you do?"
"We just started out to go dancing," she said hesitatingly. "Then, on the way to town, Nick—changed. He said someone was following us."
"Some one was," said Horker. "Iwas, with Mueller. That Nick of yours has the Devil's own cleverness!"
"Yes," the girl echoed soberly. "The Devil's own!—Who's Mueller, Dr. Carl?"
"He's a plain-clothes man, friend of mine. I treated him once. What do you mean by changed?"
"His eyes," she said. "And his mouth. His eyes got reddish and terrible, and his mouth got straight and grim. And his voice turned sort of—harsh."
"Ever happen before, that you know of?"
"Once. When—" She paused.
"Yes. Last Wednesday night, when you came over to ask those questions about pure science. What happened then?"
"We went to a place to dance."
"And that's the reason, I suppose," rumbled the Doctor sardonically, "that I found you wandering about the streets in a table cloth, step-ins, and a pair of hose! That's why I found you on the verge of passing out from rotten liquor, and looking like the loser of a battle with an airplane propellor! What happened to your face?"
"My face? What's wrong with it?"
The Doctor rose from his chair and seized the hand-mirror from her dressing table.
"Look at it!" he commanded, passing her the glass.
Pat gazed incredulously at the reflection the surface presented; a dark bruise colored her cheek, her lips were swollen and discolored, and her chin bore a jagged scratch. She stared at the injuries in horror.
"Your knees are skinned, too," said Horker. "Both of them."
Pat slipped one pajamaed limb from the covers, drawing the pants-leg up for inspection. She gasped in startled fright at the great red stain on her knee.
"That's mercurochrome," said the Doctor. "I put it there."
"Youput it there. How did I get home last night, Dr. Carl? How did I get to bed?"
"I'm responsible for that, too. I put you to bed." He leaned forward. "Listen, child—your mother knows nothing about this as yet. She wasn't home when I brought you in, and she's not awake yet this morning. We'll tell her you had an automobile accident; explain away those bruises.—And now, how did you get them?"
"I fell, I guess. Two or three times."
"That bruise on your cheek isn't from falling."
The girl shuddered. Now in the calm light of morning, the events of last night seemed doubly horrible; she doubted her ability to believe them, so incredible did they seem. She was at a loss to explain even her own actions, and those of Nicholas Devine were simply beyond comprehension, a chapter from some dark and blasphemous book of ancient times—the Kabbala or the Necronomicon.
"What happened, Pat?" queried the Doctor gently. "Tell me," he urged her.
"I—can't explain it," she said doubtfully. "He took me to that place, but drinking the liquor was my own fault. I did it out of spite because I saw he didn't—care for me. And then—" She fell silent.
"Yes? And then?"
"Well—he began to talk about the beauty of evil, the delights of evil, and his eyes glared at me, and—I don't understand it at all, Dr. Carl, but all of a sudden I was—yielding. Do you see?"
"I see," he said gently, soberly.
"Suddenly I seemed to comprehend what he meant—all that about the supreme pleasure of evil. And I was sort of—swept away. The dress—was his fault, but I—somehow I'd lost the power to resist. I guess I was drunk."
"And the bruises? And your cut lips?" queried the Doctor grimly.
"Yes," she said in a low voice. "He—struck me. After a while I didn't care. He could have—would have done other things, only we were interrupted, and had to leave. And that's all, Dr. Carl."
"Isn't that enough?" he groaned. "Pat, I should have killed the fiend there!"
"I'm glad you didn't."
"Do you mean to say you'd care?"
"I—don't know."
"Are you intimating that you still love him?"
"No," she said thoughtfully. "No, I don't love him, but—Dr. Carl, there's something inexplicable about this. There's something I don't understand, but I'm certain of one thing!"
"What's that?"
"That it wasn't Nick—notmyNick—who did those things to me last night. It wasn't, Dr. Carl!"
"Pat, you're being a fool!"
"I know it. But I'm sure of it, Dr. Carl. IknowNick; I loved him, and I know he couldn't have done—that. Not the same gentle Nick that I had to beg to kiss me!"
"Pat," said the Doctor gently, "I'm a psychiatrist; it's my business to know all the rottenness that can hide in a human being. My office is the scene of a parade of misfits, failures, potential criminals, lunatics, and mental incompetents. It's a nasty, bitter side I see of life, but I know that side—and I tell you this fellow is dangerous!"
"Do you understand this, Dr. Carl?"
He reached over, taking her hand in his great palm with its long, curious delicate fingers. "I have my theory, Pat. The man's a sadist, a lover of cruelty, and there's enough masochism in any woman to make him terribly dangerous. I want your promise."
"About what?"
"I want you to promise never to see him again."
The girl turned serious eyes on his face; he noted with a shock of sympathy that they were filled with tears.
"You warned me I'd get burned playing with fire," she said. "You did, didn't you?"
"I'm an old fool, Honey. If I'd believed my own advice, I'd have seen that this never happened to you." He patted her hand. "Have I your promise?"
She averted her eyes. "Yes," she murmured. He winced as he perceived that the tears were on her cheeks.
"So!" he said, rising. "The patient can get out of bed when she feels like it—and don't forget that little fib we've arranged for your mother's peace of mind."
She stared up at him, still clinging to his hand.
"Dr. Carl," she said, "are you sure—quite sure—you're right about him? Couldn't there be a chance that you're mistaken—that it's something your psychiatry has overlooked or never heard of?"
"Small chance, Pat dear."
"But a chance?"
"Well, neither I nor any reputable medic claims to know everything, and the human mind's a subtle sort of thing."
"I'm glad!" Pat told herself. "I'm glad it's over, and I'm glad I promised Dr. Carl—I guess I was mighty close to the brink of disaster that time."
She examined the injuries on her face, carefully powdered to conceal the worst effects from her mother. The trick had worked, too; Mrs. Lane had delivered herself of an excited lecture on the dangers of the gasoline age, and then thanked Heaven it was no worse. Well, Pat reflected, she had good old Dr. Carl to thank for the success of the subterfuge; he had broken the news very skillfully, set the stage for her appearance, and calmed her mother's apprehensions of scars. And Pat, surveying her image in the glass above her dressing-table, could see for herself the minor nature of the hurts.
"Scars—pooh!" she observed. "A bruised cheek, a split lip, a skinned chin. All I need is a black eye, and I guess I'd have had that in five minutes more, and perhaps a cauliflower ear into the bargain."
But her mood was anything but flippant; she was fighting off the time when her thoughts had of necessity to face the unpleasant, disturbing facts of the affair. She didn't want to think of the thing at all; she wanted to laugh it off and forget it, yet she knew that for an impossibility. The very desire to forget she recognized as a coward's wish, and she resented the idea that she was cowardly.
"Forget the wise-cracks," she advised her image. "Face the thing and argue it out; that's the only way to be satisfied."
She rose with a little grimace of pain at the twinge from her bruised knees, and crossed to the chaise lounge beside the far window. She settled herself in it and resumed her cogitations. She was feeling more or less herself again; the headache of the morning had nearly vanished, and aside from the various aches and a listless fagged-out sensation, she approximated her normal self. Physically, that is; the shadow of that other catastrophe, the one she hesitated to face, was another matter.
"I'm lucky to get off this easily," she assured herself, "after going on a bust like that one, like a lumberjack with his pay in his pocket." She shook her head in mournful amazement. "And I'm Patricia Lane, the girl whom Billy dubbed 'Pat the Impeccable'! Impeccable! Wandering through alleys in step-ins and a table cloth—getting beaten up in a drunken brawl—passing out on rot-gut liquor—being carried home and put to bed! Not impeccable; incapable's the word! I belong to Dr. Carl's parade of incompetents."
She continued her rueful reflections. "Well, item one is, I don't love Nick any more. I couldn't now!" she flung at the smiling green buddha on the mantel. "That's over; I've promised."
Somehow there was not satisfaction in the memory of that promise. It was logical, of course; there wasn't anything else to do now, but still—
"Thatwasn'tNick!" she told herself. "That wasn'tmyNick. I guess Dr. Carl is right, and he's a depressed what-ever-it-was; but if he's crazy, so am I! He had me convinced last night; I understood what he meant, and I felt what he wanted me to feel. If he's crazy, I am too; a fine couple we are!"
She continued. "But it wasn't Nick! I saw his face when we drove off, and it had changed again, and that was Nick's face, not the other. And he was sorry; I could see he was sorry, and the other could never have regretted it—not ever! The other isn't—quite human, but Nick is."
She paused, considering the idea. "Of course," she resumed, "I might have imagined that change at the end. I was hazy and quavery, and it's the last thing Idoremember; that must have been just before I passed out."
And then, replying to her own objection, "But Ididn'timagine it! I saw it happen once before, that other night when—Well, what difference does it make, anyway? It's over, and I've given my promise."
But she was unable to dismiss the matter as easily as that. There was some uncanny, elusive element in it that fascinated her. Cruel, terrible, demoniac, he might have been; he had also been kind, lovable, and gentle. Yet Dr. Carl had told her that split personalities could contain no characteristics that were not present in the original, normal character. Was cruelty, then, a part of kindness? Was cruelty merely the lack of kindness, or, cynical thought, was kindness but the lack of cruelty? Which qualities were positive in the antagonistic phases of Nicholas Devine's individuality, and which negative? Was the gentle, lovable, but indubitably weaker character the split, and the demon of last evening his normal self? Or vice-versa? Or were both of these fragmentary entities, portions of some greater personality as yet unapparent to her?
The whole matter was a mystery; she shrugged in helpless perplexity.
"I don't think Dr. Carl knows as much about it as he says," she mused. "I don't think psychiatry or any other science knows that much about the human soul. Dr. Carl doesn't even believe in a soul; how could he know anything about it, then?" She frowned in puzzlement and gave up the attempt to solve the mystery.
The hours she had spent in her room, at her mother's insistence, began to pall; she didn't feel particularly ill—it was more of a languor, a depressed, worn-out feeling. Her mother, of course, was out somewhere; she felt a desire for human companionship, and wondered if the Doctor might by some chance drop in. It seemed improbable; he had his regular Sunday afternoon routine of golf at the Club, and it took a real catastrophe to keep him away from that. She sighed, stretched her legs, rose from her position on the chaise lounge, and wandered toward the kitchen where Magda was doubtless to be found.
It was in the dusk of the rear hall that the first sense of her loss came over her. Heretofore her renunciation of Nicholas Devine was a rational thing, a promise given but not felt; but now it was suddenly a poignant reality. Nick was gone, she realized; he was out of her world, irrevocably sundered from her. She paused at the top of the rear flight of stairs, considering the matter.
"He's gone! I won't see him ever again." The thought was appalling; she felt already a premonition of loneliness to come, of an emptiness in her world, a lack that nothing could replace.
"I shouldn't have promised Dr. Carl," she mused, knowing that even without that promise her course must still have been the same. "I shouldn't have, not until I'd talked to Nick—my own Nick."
And still, she reflected forlornly, what difference did it make? She had to give him up; she couldn't continue to see him not knowing at what instant that terrible caricature of him might appear to torment her. But he might have explained, she argued miserably, answering her own objection at once—he's said he couldn't explain, didn't understand. The thing was at an impasse.
She shook her shining black head despondently, and descended the dusky well of the stairs to the kitchen. Magda was there clattering among her pots and pans; Pat entered quietly and perched on the high stool by the long table. Old Magda, who had warmed her babyhood milk and measured out her formula, gave her a single glance and continued her work.
"Sorry about the accident, I was," she said without looking up.
"Thanks," responded the girl. "I'm all right again."
"You don't look it."
"I feel all right."
She watched the mysterious, alchemistic mixing of a pastry, and thought of the vast array of them that had come from Magda's hands. As far back as she could remember she had perched on this stool observing the same mystic culinary rites.
Suddenly another memory rose out of the grave of forgetfulness and went gibbering across her world. She remembered the stories Magda used to tell her, frightening stories of witchcraft and the evil eye, tales out of an older region and a more credulous age.
"Magda," she asked, "did you ever see a devil?"
"Not I, but I've talked with them that had."
"Didn't you ever see one?"
"No." The woman slid a pan into the oven. "I saw a man once, when I was a tot, possessed by a devil."
"You did? How did he look?"
"He screamed terrible, then he said queer things. Then he fell down and foam came out of his mouth."
"Like a fit?"
"The Priest, he said it was a devil. He came and prayed over him, and after a while he was real quiet, and then he was all right."
"Possessed by a devil," said Pat thoughtfully. "What happened to him?"
"Dunno."
"What queer things did he say?"
"Wicked things, the Priest said. I couldn't tell! I was a tot."
"Possessed by a devil!" Pat repeated musingly. She sat immersed in thoughts on the high stool while Magda clattered busily about. The woman paused finally, turning her face to the girl.
"What you so quiet about, Miss Pat?"
"I was just thinking."
"You get your letter?"
"Letter? What letter? Today's Sunday."
"Special delivery. The girl, she put it in the hall."
"I didn't know anything about it. Who'd write me a special?"
She slipped off the high stool and proceeded to the front hall. The letter was there, solitary on the salver that always held the mail. She picked it up, examining the envelope in sudden startled amazement and more than a trace of illogical exultation.
For the letter, post-marked that same morning, was addressed in the irregular script of Nicholas Devine!
Pat turned the envelope dubiously in her hands, while a maze of chaotic thoughts assailed her. She felt almost a sensation of guilt as if she were in some manner violating the promise given to Dr. Horker; she felt a tinge of indignation that Nicholas Devine should dare communicate with her at all, and she felt too that queer exultation, an inexplicable pleasure, a feeling of secret triumph. She slipped the letter in the pocket of her robe and padded quietly up the stairs to her own room.
Strangely, her loneliness had vanished. The great house, empty now save for herself and Magda in the distant kitchen, was no longer a place of solitude; the discovery of the letter, whatever its contents, had changed the deserted rooms into chambers teeming with her own excitements, trepidations, doubts, and hopes. Even hopes, she admitted to herself, though hopes of what nature she was quite unable to say. WhatcouldNick write that had the power to change things? Apologies? Pleas? Promises? None of these could alter the naked, horrible facts of the predicament.
Nevertheless, she was almost a-tremble with expectation as she skipped hastily into her own room, carefully closed the door, and settled herself by the west windows. She drew the letter from her pocket, and then, with a tightening of her throat, tore open the envelope, slipping out the several pages of scrawled paper. Avidly she began to read.
"I don't know whether you'll ever see this"—the missive began without salutation—"and I'll not blame you, Pat dear, if you do return it unopened. There's nothing you can do that wouldn't be justified, nor can you think worse of me than I do of myself. And that's a statement so meaningless that even as I wrote it, I could anticipate its effect on you."Pat—How am I going to convince you that I'm sincere? Will you believe me when I write that I love you? Can you believe that I love you tenderly, worshipfully—reverently?"You can't; I know you can't after that catastrophe of last night. But it's true, Pat, though the logic of a Spinoza might fail to convince you of it."I don't know how to write you this. I don't know whether you want to hear what I could say, but I know that I must try to say it. Not apologies, Pat—I shouldn't dare approach you for so poor a reason as that—but a sort of explanation. You more than any one in the world are entitled to that explanation, if you want to hear it."I can't write it to you, Pat; it's something I can only make you believe by telling you—something dark and rather terrible. But please, Dear, believe that I mean you no harm, and that I plan no subterfuge, when I suggest that you see me. It will be, I think, for the last time."Tonight, and tomorrow night, and as many nights to follow as I can, I'll sit on a bench in the park near the place where I kissed you that first time. There will be people passing there, and cars driving by; you need fear nothing from me. I choose the place to bridle my own actions, Pat; nothing can happen while we sit there in the view of the world."To write you more than this is futile. If you come, I'll be there; if you don't, I'll understand."I love you."
"I don't know whether you'll ever see this"—the missive began without salutation—"and I'll not blame you, Pat dear, if you do return it unopened. There's nothing you can do that wouldn't be justified, nor can you think worse of me than I do of myself. And that's a statement so meaningless that even as I wrote it, I could anticipate its effect on you.
"Pat—How am I going to convince you that I'm sincere? Will you believe me when I write that I love you? Can you believe that I love you tenderly, worshipfully—reverently?
"You can't; I know you can't after that catastrophe of last night. But it's true, Pat, though the logic of a Spinoza might fail to convince you of it.
"I don't know how to write you this. I don't know whether you want to hear what I could say, but I know that I must try to say it. Not apologies, Pat—I shouldn't dare approach you for so poor a reason as that—but a sort of explanation. You more than any one in the world are entitled to that explanation, if you want to hear it.
"I can't write it to you, Pat; it's something I can only make you believe by telling you—something dark and rather terrible. But please, Dear, believe that I mean you no harm, and that I plan no subterfuge, when I suggest that you see me. It will be, I think, for the last time.
"Tonight, and tomorrow night, and as many nights to follow as I can, I'll sit on a bench in the park near the place where I kissed you that first time. There will be people passing there, and cars driving by; you need fear nothing from me. I choose the place to bridle my own actions, Pat; nothing can happen while we sit there in the view of the world.
"To write you more than this is futile. If you come, I'll be there; if you don't, I'll understand.
"I love you."
The letter was signed merely "Nick." She stared at the signature with feelings so confused that she forebore any attempt to analyze them.
"But I can't go," she mused soberly. "I've promised Dr. Carl. Or at least, I can't go without telling him."
That last thought, she realized, was a concession. Heretofore she hadn't let herself consider the possibility of seeing Nicholas Devine again, and now suddenly she was weakening, arguing with herself about the ethics of seeing him. She shook her head decisively.
"Won't do, Patricia Lane!" she told herself. "Next thing, you'll be slipping away without a word to anybody, and coming home with two black eyes and a broken nose. Won't do at all!"
She dropped her eyes to the letter. "Explanations," she reflected. "I guess Dr. Carl would give up a hole-in-one to hear that explanation. And I'd give more than that." She shook her head regretfully. "Nothing to do about it, though. I promised."
The sun was slanting through the west windows; she sat watching the shadows lengthen in the room, and tried to turn her thoughts into more profitable channels. This was the first Sunday in many months that she had spent alone in the house; it was a custom for herself and her mother to spend the afternoon at the club. The evening too, as a rule; there was invariably bridge for Mrs. Lane, and Pat was always the center of a circle of the younger members. She wondered dreamily what the crowd thought of her non-appearance, reflecting that her mother had doubtless enlarged on Dr. Carl's story of an accident. Dr. Carl wouldn't say much, simply that he'd ordered her to stay at home. But sooner or later, Nick would hear the accident story; she wondered what he'd think of it.
She caught herself up sharply. "My ideas wander in circles," she thought petulantly. "No matter where I start, they curve around back to Nick. It won't do; I've got to stop it."
Nearly time for the evening meal, she mused, watching the sun as it dropped behind Dr. Horker's house. She didn't feel much like eating; there was still a remnant of the exhausted, dragged-out sensation, though the headache that had accompanied her awakening this morning had disappeared.
"I know what the morning after feels like, anyway," she reflected with a wry little smile. "Everybody ought to experience it once, I suppose. I wonder how Nick—"
She broke off abruptly, with a shrug of disgust. She slipped the letter back into its envelope, rose and deposited it in the drawer of the night-table. She glanced at the clock ticking on its shiny top.
"Six o'clock," she murmured. Nick would be sitting in the park in another two hours or so. She had a twinge of sympathy at the thought of his lone vigil; she could visualize the harried expression on his face when the hours passed without her arrival.
"Can't be helped," she told herself. "He's no right to ask for anything of me after last night. He knows that; he said so in his letter."
She suppressed an impulse to re-read that letter, and trotted deliberately out of the room and down the stairs. Magda had set the table in the breakfast room; it was far cozier than the great dining room, especially without her mother's company. And the maid was away; the breakfast room simplified serving, as well.
She tried valorously to eat what Magda supplied, but the food failed to tempt her. It wasn't so much her physical condition, either; it was—She clenched her jaws firmly; was the memory of Nicholas Devine to haunt her forever?
"Pat Lane," she said in admonition, "you're a crack-brained fool! Just because a man kicks you all over the place is no reason to let him become an obsession."
She drank her coffee, feeling the sting of its heat on her injured lips. She left the table, tramped firmly to her room, and began defiantly to read. The effort was useless; half a dozen times she forced her attention to the page only to find herself staring vaguely into space a moment or two later. She closed the book finally with an irritable bang, and vented her restlessness in pacing back and forth.
"This house is unbearable!" she snapped. "I'm not going to stay shut up here like a jail-bird in solitary confinement. A walk in the open is what I need, and that's what I'll have."
She glanced at the clock; seven-thirty. She tore off her robe pettishly, flung out of her pajamas, and began to dress with angry determination. She refused to think of a lonely figure that might even now be sitting disconsolately on a bench in the near-by park.
She disguised her bruised cheek as best she could, dabbed a little powder on the abrasion on her chin, and tramped militantly down the stairs. She caught up her wrap, still lying where the Doctor had tossed it last night, and moved toward the door, opening it and nearly colliding with the massive figure of Dr. Horker!
"Well!" boomed the Doctor as she started back in surprise. "You're pretty spry for a patient. Think you were going out?"
"Yes," said Pat defiantly.
"Not tonight, child! I left the Club early to take a look at you."
"I am perfectly all right. I want to go for a walk."
"No walk. Doctor's orders."
"I'm of legal age!" she snapped. "I want to go for a walk. Do I go?"
"You do not." The Doctor placed his great form squarely in the doorway. "Not unless you can lick me, my girl, and I'm pretty tough. I put you to bed last night, and I can do as much tonight. Shall I?"
Pat backed into the hall. "You don't have to," she said sullenly. "I'm going there myself." She flung her wrap angrily to a chair and stalked up the stairs.
"Good night, spit-fire," he called after her. "I'll read down here until your mother comes home."
The girl stormed into her room in anger that she knew to be illogical.
"I won't be watched like a problem child!" she told herself viciously. "I know damn well what he thought—and I wasn't going to meet Nick! I wasn't at all!"
She calmed suddenly, sat on the edge of her bed and kicked off her pumps. It had occurred to her that Nick had written his intention to wait for her in the park tomorrow night as well, and Dr. Horker's interference had confirmed her in a determination to meet him.
"I won't be bullied!" Pat told herself, examining her features in the mirror. The two day interval had faded the discoloration of her cheek to negligible proportions, and all that remained as evidence of the violence of Saturday night was the diminishing mark on her chin. Of course, her knees—but they were covered; most of the time, at least. She gave herself a final inspection, and somewhere below a clock boomed.
"Eight o'clock," she remarked to her image; "Time to be leaving, and it serves Dr. Carl right for his high-handed actions last night. I won't be bullied by anybody." She checked herself as her mind had almost added, "Except Nick." True or not, she didn't relish the thought; the recent recollections it roused were too disturbing.
She tossed a stray wisp of black hair from her forehead and turned to the door. She heard her mother's voice as she descended the stairs.
"Are you going out, Patricia? Do you think it wise?"
"I am perfectly all right. I want to go for a walk."
"I know, Dear; it was largely your appearance I meant." She surveyed the girl with a critical eye. "Nice enough, except for that little spot on your chin, and will you never learn to keep your hair away from that side of your forehead? One can never do a bob right; why don't you let it grow out like the other girls?"
"Makes me individual," replied Pat, moving toward the outer door. "I won't be late at all," she added.
On the porch she cast a cautious glance at Dr. Horker's windows, but his great figure was nowhere evident. Only a light burning in the library evinced his presence. She gave a sigh of relief, and tiptoed down the steps to the sidewalk, and moved hastily away from the range of his watchful eyes.
No sooner had she sighted the park than doubts began to torment her. Suppose this were some trick of Nicholas Devine's, to trap her into some such situation as that of Saturday night. Even suppose that she found him the sweet personality that she had loved, might that also be a trick? Mightn't he be trusting to his ability to win her over, to the charm she had confessed to him that he held for her? Couldn't he be putting his faith in his own amorous skill, planning some specious explanation to win her forgiveness only to use her once more as the material for some horrible experiment? And if he were, would she be able to prevent herself from yielding?
"Forewarned is fore-armed," she told herself. "I'll not put up such a feeble resistance this time, knowing what I now know. And it's only fair of me to listen to his explanation, if he really has one."
She was reassured by the sight of the crowded park; groups strolled along the walks, and an endless procession of car-headlights marked the course of the roadway. Nothing could happen in such an environment; they'd be fortunate even to have an opportunity for confidential talk. She waited for the traffic lights, straining her eyes to locate Nicholas Devine; at the click of the signal she darted across the street.
She moved toward the lake; here was the spot, she was sure. She glanced about with eagerness unexpected even to herself, peering through the shadow-shot dusk. He wasn't there, she concluded, with a curious sense of disappointment; her failure to appear last night had disheartened him; he had abandoned his attempt.
Then she saw him. He sat on a bench isolated from the rest in a treeless area overlooking the lake. She saw his disconsolate figure, his chin on his hand, staring moodily over the waters. A tremor ran through her, she halted deliberately, waiting until every trace of emotion had vanished, then she advanced, standing coolly beside him.
For a moment he was unaware of her presence; he sat maintaining his dejected attitude without glancing at her. Suddenly some slight movement, the flutter of her skirt, drew his attention; he turned sharply, gazing directly into her face.
"Pat!" He sprang to his feet. "Pat! is it you—truly you? Or are you one of these visions that have been plaguing me for hours?"
"I'm real," she said, returning his gaze with a studied coolness in her face. She made no other move; her cold composure disconcerted him, and he winced, flushed, and moved nervously aside as she seated herself. He dropped beside her; he made no attempt to touch her, but sat watching her in silence for so long a time that she felt her composure ebbing. There was a hungry, defeated look about him; there was a wistfulness, a frustration, in his eyes that seemed about to tug tears from her own eyes. Abruptly she dropped her gaze from his face.
"Well?" she said finally in a small voice, and as he made no reply, "I'm here."
"Are you really, Pat? Are you truly here?" he murmured, still watching her avidly. "I—I still don't believe it. I waited here for hours and hours last night, and I'd given up hope for tonight, or any night. But I would have come again and again."
She started as he bent suddenly toward her, but he was merely examining her face. She saw the gleam of horror in his expression as his eyes surveyed the faintly visible bruise on her cheek, the red mark on her chin.
"Oh my God, Pat!" His words were barely audible. "Oh my God!" he repeated, drawing away from her and resuming the attitude of desolation in which her arrival had found him. "I've hoped it wasn't true!"
"What wasn't?" She was keeping her voice carefully casual; this miserable contrition of Nick's was tugging at her rather too powerfully for complete safety.
"What I remembered. What I saw just now."
"You hoped it wasn't true?" she queried in surprise. "But you did it."
"Idid it, Pat? Do you thinkIcould have done it?"
"But you did!" Her voice had taken on a chill inflection; the memory of those indignities came to steel her against him.
"Pat, do you think I could assault your daintiness, or maltreat the beauty I worship? Didn't anything occur to you? Didn't anything seem queer about—about that ghastly evening?"
"Queer!" she echoed. "That's certainly a mild word to use, isn't it?"
"But I mean—hadn't you any idea of what had happened? Didn't you think anything of it except that I had suddenly gone mad? Or that I'd grown to hate you?"
"What was I to think?" she countered, trying to control the tremor that had crept into her voice.
"But did you think that?"
"No," the girl confessed after a pause. "At first, when you started with that drink, I thought you were looking for material for your work. That's what you said—an experiment. Didn't you?"
"I guess so," he groaned.
"But after that, after I'd swallowed that horrible stuff, but before everything went hazy, I—thought differently."
"But what, Pat? What did you think?"
"Why, then I realized that it wasn't you—not the real you. I could feel the—well, the presence of the person I knew; this presence that was tormenting me was another person, a terrible, cold, inhuman stranger."
"Pat!" There was a note almost of relief in his voice. "Did you really feel that?"
"Yes. Does it help matters, my sensing that? I can't see how."
His eyes, which had been fixed on hers, dropped suddenly. "No," he muttered, all the relief gone out of his tones, "no, it doesn't help, does it? Except that it's a meager consolation to me to know that you felt it."
Pat struggled to suppress an impulse to reach out her hand, to stroke his hair. She caught herself sharply; this was the very danger against which she had warned herself—this was the very attitude she had anticipated in Nicholas Devine, the lure which might bait a trap. Yet he looked so forlorn, so wistful! It was an effort to forbear from touching him; her fingers fairly ached to brush his cheek.
"Only a fool walks twice into the same trap," she told herself. Aloud she said, "You promised me an explanation. If you've any excuse, I'd like to hear it." Her voice had resumed its coolness.
"I haven't any excuse," he responded gloomily, "and the explanation is perhaps too bizarre, too fantastic for belief.Idon't believe it entirely; I supposeyoucouldn't believe it at all."
"You promised," she repeated. The carefully assumed composure of her voice threatened to crack; this wistfulness of his was a powerful weapon against her defense.
"Oh, I'll give you the explanation," he said miserably. "I just wanted to warn you you'd not believe me." He gave her a despondent glance. "Pat, as I love you I swear that what I tell you is the truth. Do you think you can believe me?"
"Yes," she murmured. The tremor had reappeared in her voice despite her efforts.
Nicholas Devine turned his eyes toward the lake and began to speak.
"I don't remember when I first noticed it," began Nick in a low voice, "but I'm two people. I'm me, the person who's talking to you now, and I'm—another."
Pat, looking very pale and serious in the dusky light, said nothing at all. She simply gazed at him silently, without the slightest trace of surprise in her wide dark eyes.
"This is the real me," proceeded Nick miserably. "The other is an outsider, that has somehow contrived to grow into me. He is different; cold, cruel, utterly selfish, and not exactly—human. Do you understand?"
"Y—Yes," said the girl, fighting to control her voice. "Sort of."
"This is a struggle that has continued for a long time," he pursued. "There were times in childhood when I remember punishments for offenses I never committed, for nasty little meannessesheperpetrated. My mother, and after her death, my tutoress, thought I was lying when I tried to explain; they thought I was trying to evade responsibility. After a while I learned not to explain; I learned to accept my punishments doggedly, and to fight this other when he sought dominance."
"And could you?" asked Pat, her voice frankly quavery. "Could you fight him?"
"I was the stronger; I could win—usually. He slipped into consciousness as wilful, mean little impulses, nasty moods, unreasoning hates and such unpleasant things. But I was always the stronger: I learned to drive him into the background."
"You said youwerethe stronger," she mused. "What does that mean, Nick?"
"I've always been the stronger; I am now. But recently, Pat—I think it's since I fell in love with you—the struggle has been on evener terms. I've weakened or he's gained. I have to guard against him constantly; in any moment of weakness he may slip in, as on our ride last week, when we had that near accident. And again Saturday." He turned appealing eyes on the girl. "Pat, do you believe me?"
"I guess I'll have to," she said unhappily. "It—makes things rather hopeless, doesn't it?"
He nodded dejectedly. "Yes. I've always felt that sooner or later I'd win, and drive him away permanently. I've felt on the verge of complete victory more than once, but now—" He shook his head doubtfully. "He had never dominated me so entirely until Saturday night—Pat, you don't know what Hell is like until you're forced as I was to watch the violation of the being you worship, to stand helpless while a desecration is committed. I'd rather die than suffer it again!"
"Oh!" said the girl faintly. She was thinking of the sorry picture she must have presented as she reeled half-clothed through the alley. "Can you see what—hesees?"
"Of course, and think his thoughts. But only when he's dominant. I don't know what evil he's planning now, else I could forestall him, I would have warned you if I could have known."
"Where is he now?"
"Here," said Nick somberly. "Here listening to us, knowing what I'm thinking and feeling, laughing at my unhappiness."
"Oh!" gasped Pat again. She watched her companion doubtfully. Then the memory of Dr. Horker's diagnosis came to her, and set her wondering. Was this story the figment of an unsettled mind? Was this irrational tale of a fiendish intruder merely evidence that the Doctor was right in his opinion? She was in a maze of uncertainty.
"Nick," she said, "did you ever try medical help? Did you ever go to a doctor about it?"
"Of course, Pat! Two years ago I went to a famous psychiatrist in New York—you'd know the name if I mentioned it—and told him about the—the case. And he studied me, and he treated me, and psychoanalyzed me, and the net result was just nothing. And finally he dismissed me with the opinion that 'the whole thing is just a fixed delusion, fortunately harmless!' Harmless! Bah! But it wasn't I that did those things, Pat; I had to stand by in horror and watch. It was enough todriveme crazy, but it didn't—quite."
"But—Oh, Nick, what is it? What is this—this outsider? Can't we fight it somehow?"
"How can anyone except me fight it?"
"Oh, I don't know!" she wailed miserably. "There must be a way. Doctors claim to know pretty nearly everything; there must besomethingto do."
"But there isn't," he retorted gloomily. "I don't know any more than you what that thing is, but it's beyond your doctors. I've got to fight it out alone."
"Nick—" Her voice was suddenly tense. "Are you sure it isn't some kind of madness? Something tangible like that could perhaps be treated."
"It's no kind your doctors can treat, Pat. Did you ever hear of a madman who stood aside and rationally watched the working of his own insanity? And that's what I'm forced to do. And yet—this other isn't insane either. Were its actions insane?"
Pat shuddered. "I—don't know," she said in low tones. "I guess not."
"No. Horrible, cruel, bestial, devilishly cunning, evil—but not insane. I don't know what it is, Pat. I know that the fight has to be made by me alone. There's nothing, nobody in the world, that can help."
"Nick!" she wailed.
"I'm sorry, Pat dear. You understand now why I was so reluctant to fall in love with you. I was afraid to love you; now I know I was right."
"Nick!" she cried, then paused hopelessly. After a moment she continued, "Yesterday I was determined to forget you, and now—now I don't care if this whole tale of yours is a mesh of fantastic lies, I love you! I'd love you even if your real self were that—that other creature, and even if I knew that this was just a trap. I'd love you anyway."
"Pat," he said seriously, "don't you believe me? Why should I offer to give you up if this were—what you said? Wouldn't I be pleading for another chance, making promises, finding excuses?"
"Oh, I believe you, Nick! It isn't that; I was just thinking how strange it is that I could hate you so two nights past and love you so tonight."
"Oh God, Pat! Even you can't know how much I love you; and to win you and then be forced to give you up—" He groaned.
The girl reached out her hand and covered his; it was the first time during the evening that she had touched him, and the feel of his flesh sent a tingle through her. She was miserably distraught.
"Honey," she murmured brokenly. "Nick, Honey."
He 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."
"Then I am, Pat! I won't have it!"
"But what'll you do?"
"I'll go away. I'll battle the thing through once for all, and I'll either come back free of it or—" He paused and the girl did not question him further, but sat staring at him with troubled eyes.
"I won't write you, Pat," he continued. "If you should receive a letter from me, burn it—don't read it. It might be from—the other, a trap or a lure of some sort. Promise me! You'll promise that, won't you?"
She nodded; there was a glint of tears in her eyes.
"And I don't want you to wait, Pat," he proceeded. "I don't want you to feel that you have any obligations to me—God knows you've nothing to thank me for! When—If I come back and you haven't changed, then we'll try again."
"Nick," she said in a small voice, "how do you know the—the other won't come back here? How can you promise for—it?"
"I'm still master!" he said grimly. "I won't be dominated long enough at any time for that to happen. I'll fight it down."
"Then—it's good-bye?"
He nodded. "But not for always—I hope."
"Nick," she murmured, "will you kiss me?" She felt a tear on her cheek. "I'll stand losing you a little better if I can have a—last kiss—to remember." Her voice was faltering.
His arms were about her. She yielded herself completely to his caress; the park, the crowd passing a few yards away, the people on near-by benches, were all forgotten, and once more she felt herself alone with Nicholas Devine in a vast empty cosmos.
An insistent voice penetrated her consciousness; she realized that it had been calling her name for some seconds.
"Miss Lane," she heard, and again, "Miss Lane." A hand tapped her shoulder; with a sudden start, she tore her lips away, and looked up into a face unrecognized for a moment. Then she placed it. It was the visage of Mueller, Dr. Horker's companion on that disastrous Saturday night.
Pat stared at the intruder in a mingling of embarrassment, perplexity, and indignation. She felt her cheeks reddening as the latter emotion gained the dominance of her mood.
"Well!" she snapped. "What do you want?"
"I thought I'd walk home with you," Mueller said amiably.
"Walk home with me! Please explain that!" She grasped the arm of Nicholas Devine, who had risen angrily at the interruption. "Sit down, Nick, I know the fellow."
"So should he," said Mueller. "Sure; I'll explain. I'm on a job for Dr. Horker."
"Spying on me for him, I suppose!" taunted the girl.
"No. Not on you."
"He means on me," said Nick soberly. "You can't blame him, Pat. And perhaps you had better go home; we've finished here. There's nothing more we can do or say."
"Very well," she said, her voice suddenly softer. "In a moment, Nick." She turned to Mueller. "Would you mind telling me why you waited until now to interfere? We've been here two hours, you know."
"Sure I'll tell you. I got no orders to interfere, that's why."
"Then why did you?" queried Pat tartly.
"I didn't until I saw him there"—he nodded at Nick—"put his arms around you. Then I figured, having no orders, it was time to use my own judgment."
"If any!" sniffed the girl. She turned again to Nick; her face softened, became very tender. "Honey," she murmured huskily, "I guess it's good-bye now. I'll be fighting with you; you know that."
"I know that," he echoed, looking down into her eyes. "I'm almost happy, Pat."
"When'll you go?" she whispered in tones inaudible to Mueller.
"I don't know," he answered, his voice unchanged. "I'll have to make some sort of preparations—and I don't want you to know."
She nodded. She gazed at him a moment longer with tear-bright eyes. "Good-bye, Nick," she whispered. She rose on tiptoe, and kissed him very lightly on his lips, then turned and walked quickly away, with Mueller following behind.
She walked on, ignoring him until he halted beside her at the crossing of the Drive. Then she gave him a cold glance.
"Why is Dr. Carl having him watched?" she asked.
Mueller shrugged. "The ins and outs of this case are too much for me," he said. "I do what I'm paid to do."
"You're not watching him now."
"Nope. Seemed like the Doctor would think it was more important to get you home."
"You're wasting your time," she said irritably as the lights changed and they stepped into the street. "I was going home anyway."
"Well, now you got company all the way." Mueller's voice was placid.
The girl sniffed contemptuously, and strode silently along. The other's presence irritated her; she wanted time and solitude to consider the amazing story Nicholas Devine had given her. She wanted to analyze her own feelings, and most of all she wanted just a place of privacy to cry out her misery. For now the loss of Nicholas Devine had changed from a fortunate escape to a tragedy, and liar, madman, or devil, she wanted him terribly, with all the power of her tense little heart. So she moved as swiftly as she could, ignoring the silent companionship of Mueller.
They reached her home; the light in the living room window was evidence that the bridge game was still in progress. She mounted the steps, Mueller watching her silently from the walk; she fumbled for her key.
Suddenly she snapped her hand-bag shut; she couldn't face her mother and the two spinster Brocks and elderly, inquisitive Carter Henderson. They'd suggest that she cut into the game, and they'd argue if she refused, and she couldn't play bridge now! She glanced at the impassive Mueller, turned and crossed the strip of lawn to Dr. Horker's residence, where the light still glowed in the library, and rang the bell. She saw the figure on the sidewalk move away as the shadow of the Doctor appeared on the lighted square of the door.
"Hello," boomed the Doctor amiably. "Come in."
Pat stalked into the library and threw herself angrily into Dr. Horker's particular chair. The other grinned, and chose another place.
"Well," he said, "What touched off the fuse this time?"
"Why are you spying on my friends?" snapped the girl. "By what right?"
"So he's spotted Mueller, eh? That lad's diabolically clever, Pat—and I mean diabolic."
"That's no answer!"
"So it isn't," agreed the Doctor. "Say it's because I'm actingin loco parentis."
"Andin locois as far as you'll get, Dr. Carl, if you're going to spy on me!"
"On you?" he said mildly. "Who's spying on you?"
"On us, then!"
"Or on us?" queried the Doctor. "I set Mueller to watch the Devine lad. Have you by some mischance broken your promise to me?"
Pat flushed. She had forgotten that broken promise; the recollection of it suddenly took the wind from her sails, placed her on the defensive.
"All right," she said defiantly. "I did; I admit it. Does that excuse you?"
"Perhaps it helps to explain my actions, Pat. Don't you understand that I'm trying to protect you? Do you think I hired Mueller out of morbid curiosity, or professional interest in the case? Times aren't so good that I can throw money away on such whims."
"I don't need any protection. I can take care of myself!"
"So I noticed," said the Doctor dryly. "You gave convincing evidence of it night before last."
"Oh!" said the girl in exasperation. "You would say that!"
"It's true, isn't it?"
"Suppose it is! I don't have to learn the same lesson twice."
"Well, apparently once wasn't enough," observed the other amiably. "You walked into the same danger tonight."
"I wasn't in any danger tonight!" Suddenly her mood changed as she recalled the circumstances of her parting with Nicholas Devine. "Dr. Carl," she said, her voice dropping, "I'm terribly unhappy."
"Lord!" he exclaimed staring at her. "Pat, your moods are as changeable as my golf game! You're as mercurial as your Devine lad! A moment ago you were snapping at me, and now I'm suddenly acceptable again." He perceived the misery in her face. "All right, child; I'm listening."
"He's going away," she said mournfully.
"Don't you think that's best for everybody concerned? I commend his judgment."
"But I don't want him to!"
"You do, Pat. You can't continue seeing him, and his absence will make it easier for you."
"It'll never be easier for me, Dr. Carl." She felt her eyes fill. "I guess I'm—just a fool about him."
"You still feel that way, after the experience you went through?"
"Yes. Yes, I do."
"Then youarea fool about him, Pat. He's not worth such devotion."
"How do you know what he's worth? I'm the only one to judge that."
"I have eyes," said the Doctor. "What happened tonight to change your attitude so suddenly? You were amenable to reason yesterday."
"I didn't know yesterday what I know now."
"So he told a story, eh?" The Doctor watched her serious, troubled features. "Would you mind telling me, Honey? I'm interested in the defense mechanisms these psychopathic cases erect to explain their own impulses to themselves."
"No, I won't tell you!" snapped Pat indignantly. "Psychopathic cases! We're all just cases to you. I'm a case and he's another, and all you want is our symptoms!"
Doctor Horker smiled placatingly into her face. "Pat dear," he said earnestly, "don't you see I'd give my eyes to help you? Don't take my flippancies too seriously, Honey; look once in a while at the intentions behind them." He continued his earnest gaze.
The girl returned his look; her face softened. "I'm sorry," she said contritely. "I never doubted it, Dr. Carl—it's only that I'm so—so torn to pieces by all this that I get snappy and irritable." She paused. "Of course I'll tell you."
"I'd like to hear it."
"Well," she began hesitantly, "he said he was two personalities—one the character I knew, and one the character that we saw Saturday night. And the first one is—well, dominant, and fights the other one. He says the other has been growing stronger; until lately he could suppress it. And he says—Oh, it sounds ridiculous, the way I tell it, but it's true! I'm sure it's true!" She leaned toward the Doctor. "Did you ever hear of anything like it? Did you, Dr. Carl?"
"No." He shook his head, still watching her seriously. "Not exactly like that, Honey. Don't you think he might possibly have lied to you, Pat? To excuse himself for the responsibility of Saturday night, for instance?"
"No, I don't," she said defiantly.
"Then you have an idea yourself what the trouble is? I judge you have."
"Yes," she said in low tones. "I have an idea."
"What is it?"
"I think he's possessed by a devil!" said the girl flatly.
A quizzical expression came into the Doctor's face. "Well, of all the queer ideas that harum-scarum mind of yours haseverproduced, that's the queerest!" He broke into a chuckle.
"Queer, is it?" flared Pat. "I don't think you and your mind-doctors know as much as a Swahili medicine-man with a mask!"
She leaped angrily to her feet, stamped viciously into the hall.
"Devil and all," she repeated, "I love him!"
"Pat!" called the Doctor anxiously. "Pat! Where are you going, child?"
"Where do devils live?" Her voice floated tauntingly back from the front door. "Hell, of course!"
Pat had no intentions, however, of following the famous highway that evening. She stamped angrily down the Doctor's steps, swished her way through the break in the hedge with small regard to the safety of her sheer hose, and mounted to her own porch. She found her key, opened the door and entered.
As she ascended the stairs, her fit of temper at the Doctor passed, and she felt lonely, weary, and unutterably miserable. She sank to a seat on the topmost step and gave herself over to bitter reflections.
Nick was gone! The realization came poignantly at last; there would be no more evening rides, no more conversations whose range was limited only by the scope of the universe, no more breath-taking kisses, the sweeter for his reluctance. She sat mournfully silent, and considered the miserable situation in which she found herself.
In love with a madman! Or worse—in love with a demon! With a being half of whose nature worshiped her while the other half was bent on her destruction! Was any one, she asked herself—was any one, anywhere, ever in a more hopeless predicament?
What could she do? Nothing, she realized, save sit helplessly aside while Nick battled the thing to a finish. Or possibly—the only alternative—take him as he was, chance the vicissitudes of his unstable nature, lay herself open to the horrors she had glimpsed so recently, and pray for her fortunes to point the way of salvation. And in the mood in which she now found herself, that seemed infinitely the preferable solution. Yet rationally she knew it was impossible; she shook her head despondently, and leaned against the wall in abject misery.
Then, thin and sharp sounded the shrill summons of the door bell, and a moment later, the patter of the maid's footsteps in the hall below. She listened idly to distract herself from the chain of despondency that was her thoughts, and was mildly startled to recognize the booming drums of Dr. Horker's voice. She heard his greeting and the muffled reply from the group, and then a phrase understandable because of his sonorous tones.
"Where's Pat?" The words drifted up the well of the stairs, followed by a scarcely audible reply from her mother. Heavy footfalls on the carpeted steps, and then his figure bulked on the landing below her. She cupped her chin on her hands, and stared down at him while he ascended to her side, sprawling his great figure beside her.
"Pat, Honey," he rumbled, "you're beginning to get me worried!"
"Am I?" Her voice was weary, dull. "I've had myself like that for a long time."
"Poor kid! Are you really so miserable over this Nick problem of yours?"
"I love him."
"Yes." He looked at her with sympathy and calculation mingling in his expression. "I believe you do. I'm sorry, Honey; I didn't realize until now what he means to you."
"You don't realize now," she murmured, still with the weary intonation.
"Perhaps not, Pat, but I'm learning. If you're in this thing as deeply at all that, I'm in too—to the finish. Want me?"
She reached out her hand, plucking at his coatsleeve. Abruptly she leaned toward him, burying her face against the rough tweed of his suit; she sobbed a little, while he patted her gently with his great, delicately fingered hand. "I'm sorry, Honey," he rumbled. "I'm sorry."
The girl drew herself erect and leaned back against the wall, shaking her head to drive the tears from her eyes. She gave the Doctor a wan little smile.
"Well?" she asked.
"I'll return your compliment of the other night," said Horker briskly. "I'll ask a few questions—purely professional, of course."
"Fire away, Dr. Carl."
"Good. Now, when our friend has one of these—uh—attacks, is he rational? Do his utterances seem to follow a logical thought sequence?"
"I—think so."
"In what way does he differ from his normal self?"
"Oh, every way," she said with a tremor. "Nick's kind and gentle and sensitive and—and naive, and this—other—is cruel, harsh, gross, crafty, and horrible. You can't imagine a greater difference."
"Um. Is the difference recognizable instantly? Could you ever be in doubt as to which phase you were encountering?"
"Oh, no! I can—well, sort of dominate Nick, but the other—Lord!" She shuddered again. "I felt like a terrified child in the presence of some powerful, evil god."
"Humph! Perhaps the god's name was Priapus. Well, we'll discount your feelings, Pat, because you weren't exactly in the best condition for—let's saysoberjudgment. Now about this story of his. What happens to his own personality when this other phase is dominant? Did he say?"
"Yes. He said his own self was compelled to sort of stand by while the—the intruder used his voice and body. He knew the thoughts of the other, but only when it was dominant. The rest of the time he couldn't tell its thoughts."
"And how long has he suffered from these—intrusions?"
"As long as he can remember. As a child he was blamed for the other's mischief, and when he tried to explain, people thought he was lying to escape punishment."
"Well," observed the Doctor, "I can see how they might think that."
"Don't you believe it?"
"I don't exactly disbelieve it, Honey. The human mind plays queer tricks sometimes, and this may be one of its little jokes. It's a psychiatrist's business to investigate such things, and to painlessly remove the point of the joke."
"Oh, if you only can, Dr. Carl! If you only can!"
"We'll see." He patted her hand comfortingly.
"Now, you say the kind, gentle, and all that, phase is the normal one. Is that usually dominant?"
"Yes. Nick can master the other, or could until recently. He says this last—attack—is the worst he's ever had; the other has been gaining strength."
"Strange!" mused the Doctor. "Well," he said with a smile of encouragement, "I'll have a look at him."
"Do you think you can help?" Pat asked anxiously. "Have you any idea what it is?"
"It isn't a devil, at any rate," he smiled.
"But have you any idea?"
"Naturally I have, but I can't diagnose at second hand. I'll have to talk to him."
"But what do you think it is?" she persisted.
"I think it's a fixation of an idea gained in childhood, Honey. I had a patient once—" He smiled at the reminiscence—"who had a fixed delusion of that sort. He was perfectly rational on every point save one—he believed that a pig with a pink ribbon was following him everywhere! Down town, into elevators and offices, home to bed—everywhere he went this pink-ribboned prize porker pursued him!"
"And did you cure him?"
"Well, he recovered," said the Doctor non-committally. "We got rid of the pig. And it might be something of that nature that's troubling your boy friend. Your description doesn't sound like a praecox or a manic depressive, as I thought originally."
"Oh," said Pat abruptly. "I forgot. He went to a doctor in New York, a very great doctor."
"Muenster?"
"He didn't say whom. But this doctor studied him a long time, and finally came out with this fixed idea theory of yours. Only he couldn't cure him."
"Um." Horker grunted thoughtfully.
"Do fixed ideas do things like that to people?" queried the girl. "Things like the pig and what happened to Nick?"
"They might."
"Then they're devils!" she announced with an air of finality. "They're just your scientific jargon for exactly what Magda means when she says a person's possessed by a devil. So I'm right anyway!"
"That's good orthodox theology, Pat," chuckled the Doctor. "We'll try a little exorcism on your devil, then." He rose to his feet. "Bring your boy friend around, will you?"
"Oh, Dr. Carl!" she cried. "He's leaving! I'll have to call him tonight!"
"Not tonight, Honey. Mueller would let me know if anything of that sort were happening. Tomorrow's time enough."
The girl stood erect, mounting to the top step to bring her head level with the Doctor's. She threw her arms about him, burying her face in his massive shoulder.
"Dr. Carl," she murmured, "I'm a nasty, ill-tempered, vicious little shrew, and I'm sorry, and I apologize. You know I'm crazy about you, and," she whispered in his ear, "so's Mother!"