Carl hurried him to a chair in front of his desk, and then seated himself. Pierre sat down, but still remained covered. "Doctor Fielding, I am glad that you trusted my telephone call this afternoon," Pierre began to speak. "When I told you last night that I would come to see you, it was because I wanted to help you. Your fiancée was in danger. I saw the sign of Moonere upon her throat." "You mean this?" Carl displayed the necklace Chadwick had found that afternoon. "Yes, that is the mark of the Countess Moonard--the beginning of what will eventually become this!" Pierre stood up, throwing the cape from his face. For a moment Carl's senses reeled. He gripped the edge of his desk, and leaned unsteadily against the back of his chair. He felt the blood drain from his head; he had not felt this way since his first days in the dissecting-room at the medical school. His horror shamed him. After all, he was a doctor who was supposed to be able to stand the ghastly sight of blood and injury. But this was different! What he saw in Pierre's face was beyond ordinary gore! The face seemed to be afire. It looked like flesh that was slowly being cooked. The eyes bulged and smoke seemed to swirl from them. And above it all there was the horrible stench of charred human skin. For a long moment Pierre said nothing. Carl could not speak, although he fought bravely to gain control of his feelings. "Not a very encouraging sight, is it, doctor?" Pierre broke the awful silence. "I--I can't believe it. It's not possible--it--in God's name, man, what caused this?" Carl finally gasped. "Moonere!" Pierre's pained eyes looked into Carl's. "Moonere?" "Perhaps you know her better by the name of the Countess Donella Moonard. The beautiful Countess Moonard and Moonere, the sorceress, daughter of the God of Sudre, are one. Your fiancée is marked for the sacrifice that for the last ten thousand years has offered up its beautiful captives to the greedy God of Sudre!" "Sudre? Where is Sudre?" Carl stared at him incredulously. "Sudre is another world, another planet, with another scheme of life--a scheme of life more complex than any dream of our existence, more terrible than all the horrors of history, beyond comprehension by any of our sciences or philosophies. It is all we are, refined and horribly exaggerated in some phases, until our most potent symbols of evil are only weak caricatures beside it. It is evil transcendent and all-powerful. It is the natural, purged of any goodness, and become supernatural and transcendent. A few men of ancient Egypt knew of its existence, knew of the All-Powerful One of Sudre, who has been playing his evil jest upon the helpless people of this earth for countless centuries." * * * * * Carl could only stare at Pierre, trying to realize meaning from the strange sounds he made. It was as if he listened to a man from another world.