"I can conjecture," answered Fernand, boldly. "Thou art the Power of Darkness." "So men call me," returned the demon, with a scornful laugh, "Yes--I am he whose delight it is to spread desolation over a fertile and beautiful earth--he, whose eternal enmity against man is the fruitful source of so much evil! But of all the disciples who have ever yet aided me in my hostile designs on the human race, none was so serviceable as Faust--that Count of Aurana, whose portrait thou hast so well delineated, and which now graces the wall of thy late dwelling." "Would that I had never known him!" ejaculated Wagner fervently. "On the contrary," resumed the demon; "thou should'st be thankful that in the wild wanderings of his latter years he stopped at thy humble cottage in the Black Forest of Germany. Important to thee were the results of that visit--and still more important may they become!" "Explain thyself, fiend!" said Wagner, nothing dismayed. "Thou wast tottering with age--hovering on the brink of the tomb--suspended to a thread which the finger of a child might have snapped," continued the demon; "and in one short hour thou wast restored to youth, vigor, and beauty." "And by how dreadful a penalty was that renovated existence purchased!" exclaimed Wagner. "Hast thou not been taught by experience that no human happiness can be complete?--that worldly felicity must ever contain within itself some element of misery and distress?" demanded the fiend. "Reflect--and be just! Thou art once more young--and thy tenure of life will last until that age at which thou would'st have perished, had no superhuman power intervened to grant thee a new lease of existence! Nor is a long life the only boon conferred upon thee hitherto. Boundless wealth is ever at thy command; the floor of this dungeon would be strewed with gold, and jewels, and precious stones, at thy bidding--as thou well knowest! Moreover, thou wast ignorant--illiterate--uninformed: now all the sources of knowledge--all the springs of learning--all the fountains of science and art, are at thy disposal, and with whose waters thou canst slake the thirst of thine intellect. Endowed with a youthfulness and a vigor of form that will yield not to the weight of years--that will defy the pressure of time--and that no malady can impair,--possessed of wealth having no limit,--and enriched with a mind so stored with knowledge that the greatest sage is as a child in comparison with thee,--how darest thou complain or repent of the compact which has given to thee all these, though associated with the destiny of a Wehr-Wolf?" "It is of this fatal--this terrible destiny that I complain and that I repent," answered Wagner. "Still do I admit that the advantages which I have obtained by embracing that destiny are great." "And may be far greater!" added the demon, impressively. "Handsome, intelligent, and rich--all that thou dost require is power!"