following, furious, but not daring to let them out of his
sight.

The church was crowded with dusky half-clothed forms, prostrate before
the altar. The Devil, during the long service, wandered amongst them,
giving a vicious kick with his cloven foot here, pricking with the sharp
point of his tail there, breeding a fine discord and routing devotion.
When vespers were over he was obliged to follow the priests to the
refectory, but found compensation in noting that Paulo displayed a keen
relish for his meat and wine. The older man put his supper away morsel
by morsel, as if he were stuffing a tobacco-pouch.

The meal finished, Paulo sallied forth for his evening walk. The Devil
had his chance.

He was a wise Devil--a Devil of an experience so vast that the world
would go crashing through space under its weight in print. He wasted
no time with the preliminary temptations--pride, ambition, avarice. He
brought out the woman at once.

The young priest, wandering through a grove of cottonwoods, his hands
clasped listlessly behind him, his chin sunken dejectedly upon his
breast, suddenly raised his eyes and beheld a beautiful woman standing
not ten paces away. She was not a girl like her whom he had renounced
for the Church, but a woman about whose delicate warm face and slender
palpitating bosom hung the vague shadow of maturity. Her hair was the
hot brown of copper, thick and rich; her eyes were like the meeting of
flame and alcohol. The emotion she inspired was not the pure glow which
once had encouraged rather than deprecated renunciation; but at the
moment he thought it sweeter.

He sprang forward with arms outstretched, instinct conquering vows in
a manner highly satisfactory to the Devil; then, with a bitter
imprecation, turned and fled. But he heard light footfalls behind him;
he was conscious of a faint perfume, born of no earthly flower, felt a
soft panting breath. A light hand touched his face. He flung his vows to
anxious Satan, and turned to clasp the woman in his arms. But she coyly
retreated, half-resentfully, half-invitingly, wholly lovely. Satan
closed his iron hand about the vows, and the priest ran toward the
woman, the lines of repression on his face gone, the eyes conquering the
mouth. But again she retreated. He quickened his steps; she accelerated
hers; his legs were long and agile; but she was fleet of foot. Finally
she ran at full speed, her warm bright hair lifted and spreading, her
tender passio