For as much as a year Satan continued these visits, but at last he came less often, and then for a long time he did not come at all.

This always made me lonely and melancholy.

I felt that he was losing interest in our tiny world and might at any time abandon his visits entirely.

When one day he finally came to me I was overjoyed, but only for a little while.
He had come to say good-by, he told me, and for the last time.

He had investigations and undertakings in other corners of the universe, he said, that would keep him busy for a longer period than I could wait for his return.
"And you are going away, and will not come back any more ?" "Yes," he said.