"Easy--easy!" he chuckled. "You are not the first to shrink at giving up a cherished chimera. You see I am much older than you, and know all of humanity's foibles and make-believes. I am your friend. In your mind you have created an angel out of a piece of ignoble clay. Listen, while I prove to you that I am your friend, and show you a way to success." Thereupon his vileness became so bold and horrible that I will not soil this white paper with a transscript of it, and I sank upon a bench, elbows on knees and face in hands, listening to the damnable rigmarole because I could not help it. My visitor was beyond personal violence--witness my recent fruitless attempt to strike him--or time and again I would have closed with him and slain him, or been slain. Shudders of shame and rage swept me from head to foot, and my cheeks grew so hot they burned my palms. Hours passed. At times the Devil relaxed, and a sort of armistice prevailed, then he would renew his merciless planning for my destruction, and how smooth and easy the road appeared under the magic of his voice! Throughout the entire night I remained humped over, shaking at intervals as some especially diabolical sentence fell upon my unwilling but helpless ears; holding my tongue, because I knew that no words of mine would avail to move the monster at my elbow. Hast ever sat up o' night with the Devil, my brothers? It comes to me that every one who lives, or has lived must have had this experience. 'Tis a blood chilling one, forsooth; at least when resistance is offered. Only when daylight stole ghost-wise through the still aisles of the immemorial wood did mine Enemy depart, and I got to my feet, trembling as one risen from a bed of grievous sickness, groped my way within, and fell with a groan across my cot.