“I can’t understand the devil,” she said half aloud. “I think he’s a silly old thing. The idea of him setting himself up to fight against God! Why, he might know he’d be beaten any day. I’m not the least bit frightened of him with his ugly horns and hoofs—he doesn’t seem to know whether he’s a man or a cow.” And she laughed. But before the laugh had ended a curious sensation came creeping over her. It was as if something were compelling her to look at the foot of the bed, and she looked. The light was pretty low, yet high enough for her to discern the objects around; but by the lower bed-post there was an unfamiliar shadow. Deborah felt as if some power beyond herself was dragging her up in bed. “Sit up,” said the voice. “But—” she gasped. “No buts,” said the voice. So she sat up, grasping the pillow behind her with both hands, and for the first time in her life, and perhaps the last, she knew what it was to feel her hair literally rising. And there—yes, Deborah never forgot it—there stood the dark, dusky form so different from that which her imagination pictured. Her first wild longing was to get up and run, crying for help, but every limb seemed frozen. “What! will you run away from that which you have laughed at?” said the even voice. “Look!” She looked. It was a face and figure to remember, just above medium height, not too tall. One arm rested on the bed-post, and he was slightly leaning towards the bed. But the face. Every feature was perfect and most finely cut. The chin a little square, though more inclined to oval. The mouth proud and firm, with lips bent into a cruel and perpetual smile. The nose straight and strong and perfect. The forehead high and with one deep wrinkle. But the eyes—who, having seen them, could forget them? They were the only thing about him that was not human. They were deep-set, gloomy, cruel, far-reaching, and yet not the least like human eyes. They seemed as if they showed you things, terrible things, too awful to be spoken of. And Deborah, held by a power much stronger than herself, looked right into them, into those great black sombre dusky balls of hidden fire, and they returned the stare. Suddenly she began to find the feeling of extreme fear passing. And gradually as it had come the vision melted, but Deborah still continued to sit up in bed. “I wonder what the angels were about to let him get in,” she thought, her heart still beating hard. “And when I said ‘Jesus Christ’ he never moved a bit. But he hadn’t any horns as they always give him in the pictures. I wonder how I knew it was the devil. I expect because he looked so horribly dark and bad. I’d best sit up for fear he returns.” She sat up, and some time afterwards she heard her father coming to bed. She called him in just to have the light turned up and see a human being again, and after that she lay down and slept peacefully. Still, though Deborah remembered the scene for ever after she never by any chance mentioned it to anyone.