"On my honor as a gentleman, I am not jesting. See here." As he spoke Pomerantseff seized the Abbe's hand. "You heard me tell the Duke just now that I believed he had seen the spirit of love. Well, the sermon you preached the day before yesterday, which all Paris is talking about, and in which you endeavored to prove the personality of the devil to be a fact, was truer than perhaps you believed when you preached it. Why should not Frontignan have seen the spirit of love _when I know and have seen the devil_?" "_Mon ami_, you are insane!" cried Gerard. "Why, the devil does not exist!" "I tell you I have seen him--the God of all Evil, the Prince of Desolation!" cried the other in an excited voice. "And what is more, _I will show him to you_!" "Show the devil to _me_!" exclaimed the Abbe, half terrified, half amused. "Why, you are out of your mind!" The Prince laid his other hand upon the arm of the Abbe, who could feel he was trembling with excitement. "You know my address," he said in a quick, passionate voice. "When you feel--as I tell you you surely will--desirous of investigating this further, send for me, and I promise, on my honor as a gentleman, to show you the devil, so that you cannot doubt. I will do this on one condition." The Abbe felt almost faint; for apart from the wildness of the words thus abruptly and unexpectedly addressed to him, the hand of the Prince which lay upon his own, as if to keep him still, seemed to be pouring fire and madness into him. He tried to withdraw it, but the other grasped the fingers tight. "On one condition," repeated Pomerantseff in a lower tone. "What condition?" murmured the poor Abbe. "That you trust yourself entirely to me until we reach the place of meeting." "Prince, let go my hand! You are hurting me! I will promise to do as you say when I want to go to your infernal meeting." He wrenched his hand away, pulled down the carriage window and let the cold night air in. "Pomerantseff, you are a madman; you are dangerous. Why the devil did you grasp my hand in that way? My arm is numb." The Prince laughed. "It is only electricity. I was determined, since you doubted the existence of the devil, to make you promise to come and see him." "I never promised!" exclaimed the Abbe. "I only promised to trust myself to you if the horrible desire should ever seize me to investigate your mad words further. But you need not be afraid of that. God forbid I should indulge in such folly!" The Prince smiled. "God has nothing to do with this," he remarked simply. "You will come." The carriage had now turned up the street in which the Abbe lived, and they were but a few doors from his house.