Carossan had begged not to be married in the same church, and all involved whole-heartedly agreed. She had not told Thomas what had happened when she fainted, half hoping it was an hallucination, but the scar on her left breast would not let her forget, and the closer she came to term in her pregnancy the more she became sick with worry, and true to her fears the child came two months premature and was stillborn.

        Carossan became a different woman. Once playful and impulsive, a sombreness now descended on her, deepening as each month passed that she did not conceive again. Nightmares destroyed her sleep as the Devil, dressed as a gentleman, pounded on her door demanding her soul. She would awaken, breathing heavily and sweating, her bedsheets soaked. She took to sleeping alone but would run into Thomas' room and gently crawl into bed beside him, not waking him, letting his warmth and smell slowly quieten her panic.

        Months passed before her nightmares began to slowly recede, returning some of her youthful gaiety. She started sleeping with Thomas again at night and her heart loved him deeply. Though he had shown her no resentment in the long year after the death of their child, she could see he longed for another, but never did he make love to her other than to express his tenderness and then she would melt into him, into a stillness that bound them ever closer.

        The doctor had given his opinion. Somehow the birth had rendered Carossan unable to have children, though he could ascertain no physical damage. After ten years of marriage, at twenty-eight, Carossan had not aged a day, while Thomas, five years older, had a touch of gray in his hair, and was an elegant gentleman, now of substantial means. Their friends, especially the women, would remark enviously that Carossan had the skin of a young girl, whilst the men, over brandy when Thomas was out of earshot, that she had the body of an angel.

        The couple were much loved in the shire, invited regularly and sometimes too often to dinners, dances and a myriad number of other society functions. Carossan took to making herself look a little older when they went out, aware of the glances she received, and at home she searched her skin hoping to find a blemish, a wrinkle, but the years passed and at thirty-eight she was unchanged, her body still eighteen years old. Once a year, on the day of her aborted marriage, she had the nightmare, and the Devil's last words to her began to have meaning.