And suddenly, squarely in the center of the road, another car, until now concealed by the arch of the bridge, appeared almost upon them. There was a heart-stopping moment when a collision seemed inevitable, and Pat felt the arm against her tighten convulsively into a bar of steel. She heard her own sobbing gasp, and then, somehow, they had slipped unscathed between the other car and the rail of the bridge. "Oh!" she gasped faintly, then with a return of breath, "That was nice, Nick!" Beyond the bridge, the road widened once more; she felt the car slowing, edging toward the broad shoulder of the road. "There was danger," said her companion in tones as emotionless as the rasping of metal. "I came to save it." "Save what?" queried Pat as the car slid to a halt on the turf. "Your body." The tones were still cold, like grinding wheels. "The beauty of your body!" He reached a thin hand toward her, suddenly seized her skirt and snatched it above the silken roundness of her knees. "There," he rasped. "That is what I mean." "Nick!" Pat half-screamed in appalled astonishment. "How--" She paused, shocked into abrupt silence, for the face turned toward her was but a remote, evil caricature of Nicholas Devine's. It leered at her out of blood-shot eyes, as if behind the mask of Nick's face peered a red-eyed demon. 5 A Fantasy of Fear The satyr beside pat was leaning toward her; the arm about her was tightening with a brutal ruthlessness, and while still staring in fascination at the incredible eyes, she realized that another arm and a white hand was moving relentlessly, exploratively, toward her body. It was the cold touch of this hand as it slipped over her silk-sheathed legs that broke the chilling spell of her fascination. "Nick!" she screamed. "Nick!" She had a curious sensation of calling him back from far distances, the while she strove with both hands and all her strength to press him back from her. But the ruthless force of his arms was overcoming her resistance; she saw the red eyes a hand's breadth from her own. "Nick!" she sobbed in terror. There was a change. Abruptly, she was looking into Nick's eyes, blood-shot, frightened, puzzled, but indubitably Nick's eyes. The flaming orbs of the demon were no more; it was as if they had receded into Nick's head. The arm about her body relaxed, and they were staring at each other in a medley of consternation, amazement and unbelief. The youth drew back, huddled in his corner of the car, and Pat, breathing in sobs, smoothed out her rumpled apparel with a convulsive movement. "Pat!" he gasped. "Oh, my God! He couldn't have--" He paused abruptly. The girl gazed at him without reply. "Pat, Dear," he spoke in a low, tense murmur, "I'm--sorry. I don't know--I don't understand how--" "Never mind," she said, regaining a vestige of her customary composure. "It's--all right, Nick." "But--oh, Pat--!" "It was that near accident," she said. "That upset you--both of us, I mean."