"You are not satisfied," he said quietly "because you are undernourished, ungainly, and ugly. You would like to be attractive. You wish to be admired. You long to be loved. Yet you are not." "That's enough!" Miss Twilley snapped. "Neither man nor Devi has the right to insult me in my own house." "I am not insulting you," Lyf said patiently. "I am telling you the truth. Now as for this business of being well-off, which I infer, means moderately wealthy--you are not. There was a small inheritance from your father, but through mismanagement and inept investments it is today less than fifteen thousand dollars, although it was fifty thousand when you received it a few years ago." "You _are_ the devil!" she gasped. "I told you I could read your mind. I'm a telepath." "I don't believe you. You found out somehow." "You're not thinking," he said. "How could I? Now, as for your health, you will be dead in six months without my help. You have adenocarcinoma of the pancreas which has already begun to metastasize. You cannot possibly survive with the present state of medicine your race possesses. Of course, your doctors do have ingenious ways of alleviating the pain," he added comfortingly, "like chordotomy and neurectomy." Miss Twilley didn't recognize the last two words, but they sounded unpleasant. She _had_ been worried about her health, but to hear this quiet-voiced death sentence paralyzed her with a cold crawling terror. "It's not true!" she gasped. Yet she knew it was. "I could make a fortune as a diagnostician for your sham--your doctors," Lyf said. "It's as true as the fact that I'm a Devi from Hel. Actually, my dear Miss Twilley, I had no intention of coming here even though your gateway appeared in my library. But I was intrigued enough to scan through it. And when I saw you at the other end, frightened, diseased, and friendless, I could not help feeling pity for you. You needed my help badly." He sighed. "Empathy is a Devi's weak point. Naturally I couldn't refuse your appeal." He shrugged. "At least I have offered to help, and my conscience is clear if you refuse." He wrapped his cloak around him with a movement of his lithe body that was symbolic. The case had been stated. His part was done. * * * * * "I have nothing more to say," Lyf added. "If you do not wish me to stay I shall leave." He turned toward the T.V. set. "After I have vanished," he said over his shoulder "you may turn the set off. The gateway will disappear." He shrugged. "Next time I'll look for a sabbat or some other normal focal point before I enter a gateway. This has been thoroughly unsatisfying." "Wait!" Miss Twilley gasped. He paused. "Have you changed your mind?" "Maybe." "For a human female, that's quite a concession," he said, "but I'm a Devi. I need a more devinate--er--definite answer." "Would you give me twenty-four hours?" Miss Twilley said. "So you can check my diagnosis?" She nodded.