"Not happy, Diana--but why?" "Because!" "Because of what?" "Oh, never mind! Let's go on." "Won't you tell me?" "No. Let's go on." "May I not share your sorrows, Diana?" I enquired, and laid my hand on her arm; but she shook me off, though not before I had seen her eyes were suffused with tears. Therefore I caught and held her hand so that she stopped, facing me, and thus I saw her tears were falling and she not troubling to hide or wipe them away. "Can't you let me alone?" she sobbed. "Why, Diana!" I exclaimed. "O child, don't weep; true friends must share sorrow as well as joy! So, if we are to be friends, tell me what is troubling you." "Yonder!" said she, pointing to the blue distance before us. "'Tis the beyond--'tis the Future as do fright me." "But I thought you feared nothing, Diana?" "Only myself!" she cried, throwing out her arms in a sudden wild gesture. "There be a devil inside o' me sometimes--a devil as even old Azor was afeard of an' most o' the men--" "Then I think this must be rather a good devil, Diana." "Ah no--no!" she cried. "'Tis a devil as drives me to wild thoughts an' ways--things as do shame me. 'Tis very fierce and strong!" "Still, I do not think I fear this devil--or ever should, Diana." "You? But you calls yourself a coward!" "To be sure I did, and very properly, because I was greatly afraid of a ruffian with a bludgeon and fled accordingly. But I do not fear devils in the least." "Because you don't know--" "There you are quite wrong!" said I, patting the hand I still held and noting its strength and shapeliness. "For, and apprehend me, Diana, we all, each one of us, possess a devil large or small, and my own is uncomfortably big and strong occasionally, and very difficult to overcome. But this is what devils are for--" "You're flamming me!" she cried angrily and snatched her hand away. "A very unpleasing word! Pray what does it signify?" "You're gammoning--" "That is rather worse--" "You're making game o' me!" "On the contrary, I'm very serious! Don't you see, Diana, that all demons and devils are a means to our ultimate good?" "No, I don't! How can they be?" "In this manner: every devil, be he an evil thought, passion, hate or revenge, a desire to do harm, to lie, to steal, to kill or to run away like a coward--these are all demons to be fought with and overcome, and the oftener we vanquish them, the stronger and better we grow, until at last you--or I--may become something very near an angel." "I could never be an angel!" she retorted sullenly. "And what's more, I don't want--" "You do," said I, "indeed you do, I'm sure, or why should you so hate this devil of yours and fear the beyond? And there is an angel inside you, Diana; I have seen it peep at me through your eyes--" "Now I think you're talking foolish!" said she petulantly.