"Nick," she said, "I'm going to be there, and you're going to meet me." There was silence at the other end. "Nick!" she cried anxiously. "Do you hear me? I'll be there. Will you?" His voice sounded again, now flat and toneless. "Yes," he said. "I'll be there." The receiver clicked at the far end of the wire; there was only a futile buzzing in Pat's ears. She replaced the instrument and sat staring dubiously at it. Had that been Nick, really her Nick, or--? Suppose she went to that meeting and found--the other? Was she willing to face another evening of indignities and terrors like those still fresh in her memory? Still, she argued, what harm could come to her on that bench, exposed as it was to the gaze of thousands who wandered through the park on summer evenings? Suppose it _were_ the other who met her; there was no way to force her into a situation such as that of Saturday night. Nick himself had chosen that very spot for their other meeting, and for that very reason. "There's no risk in it," she told herself, "Nothing can possibly happen. I'll simply go there and bring Nick back to Dr. Carl's, along a lighted, busy street, the whole two blocks. What's there to be afraid of?" Nothing at all, she answered herself. But suppose--She shuddered and deliberately abandoned her chain of thought as she rose and rejoined her mother. 20 The Assignation Pat was by no means as buoyant as she had been in the morning. She approached the appointed meeting place with a feeling of trepidation that all her arguments could not subdue. She surveyed the crowded walks of the park with relief; she felt confirmed in her assumption that nothing unpleasant could occur with so many on-lookers. So she approached the bench with somewhat greater self-assurance than when she had left the house. She saw the seat with its lone occupant, and hastened her steps. Nicholas Devine was sitting exactly as he had on that other occasion, chin cupped on his hands, eyes turned moodily toward the vast lake that coruscated now with the reflection of stars and many lights. As before, she moved close to his side before he looked up, but here the similarity of the two occasions vanished. Her fears were realized; she was looking into the red-gleaming eyes and expressionless features of his other self--the demon of Saturday evening! "Sit down!" he said as a sardonic half-smile twisted his lips. "Aren't you pleased? Aren't you thrilled to the very core of your being?" Pat stood irresolute; she controlled an impulse to break into sudden, abandoned flight. The imminence of the crowded walks again reassured her, and she seated herself gingerly on the extreme edge of the bench, staring at her companion with coolly inimical eyes. He returned her gaze with features as immobile as carven stone; only his red eyes gave evidence of the obscene, uncanny life behind the mask. "Well?" said Pat in as frigid a voice as she could muster.