would never shine for her on earth again, that such love comes to
one only in dreams or in impossible places like this, unattainable
always. This was Love's self, in a moment it would die. Stung by
the agonized appeal that emanated from the man's whole being, she
leaned forward and laid her lips on his. Once, twice and again she
heard the deep respirations rattle in his throat while she held
them there, and the riotous force under her head became an
engulfing weakness. He drew her up to him until he felt all the
resistance go out of her body, until every nerve relaxed and
yielded. When she drew her face back from
his, it was white with fear.

"Let us go down, oh, my God! let us go down!" she muttered.
And the drunken stars up yonder seemed reeling to some appointed
doom as she clung to the rounds of the ladder. All that she was to
know of love she had left upon his lips.

"The devil is loose again," whispered Olaf Oleson, as he saw Eric
dancing a moment later, his eyes blazing.

But Eric was thinking with an almost savage exultation of the
time when he should pay for this. Ah, there would be no quailing
then! if ever a soul went fearlessly, proudly down to the gates
infernal, his should go. For a moment he fancied he was there
already, treading down the tempest of flame, hugging the fiery
hurricane to his breast. He wondered whether in ages gone, all the
countless years of sinning in which men had sold and lost and flung
their souls away, any man had ever so cheated Satan, had ever
bartered his soul for so great a price.