that the tarnished Cuckoo, in the first moments of regret, was more conscious of his sin for him than he was conscious of it for himself; that she led him, with her dingy hands, to such repentance as he experienced, and that she, too, guarded him against repetition of the sin, so far as she was concerned.  Julian considered these circumstances; and there was a time when they were not without effect upon him, and when, with the assistance of a word from Valentine, they might have worked upon him an easy salvation.  But Valentine did not speak that word.  His peculiar purity had saved Julian in the past by its mere existence.  Its presence was enough.  That satis was dead now.  Julian did not ask why.  Nor did he find himself troubled by its decease.  There is nothing like action for making man unobservant.  Julian was no longer a ship in dock, nor even a ship riding at anchor.  The anchor was up, the sails were set, the water ran back from the vessel’s prow.

Cuckoo was not conscious of this.  Sometimes she was subtle by intuition; often she was not subtle at all.  When she understood Julian’s nature for the moment, it was because his nature was, for the moment, in close relation to hers.  Her fate was affected by it, or its passages of arms clashed near her heart.  Then intuition, woman’s guardian, had eyes and ears, saw and heard with a distinctness that was nearly brilliant.  But when Julian’s nature wandered, and the wanderings did not bring it where hers was dwelling, her observation slept soundly enough.  So she was not conscious at first of Julian’s gentle progress in a new direction.  Whether Valentine was conscious of it did not immediately appear, for Julian said nothing.  For five years he had not had a secret from Valentine.  Now he had to have one.  He ranked Valentine with Doctor Levillier as too good to be told of the evil thing.  When he had had temptations and resisted them he had told Valentine of them frankly.  Now he had temptations, and was beginning not to resist them; he kept silence about them.  This silence lasted for a little while, and then Valentine swept it away, involuntarily it seemed, and by means of action, not of words.

One day Julian met a man at his club, a lively, devil-may-care soldier of fortune in the world.  The man came to where he was sitting and said: 

“So, Addison, your god has fallen from his pedestal.  He’s only a Dagon after all.”

Julian looked at him ignorantly.

“What god?” he asked.

“Your saint has tumbled from his perch.  I never believed in him.”

He was of the species that never believes in anything except vice and the Sporting Times.

Julian rejoined: 

“I don’t understand you.”

“Cresswell,” said the man.

Julian began to wonder what was coming, and silently got ready for the defence, as he always did instinctively when Valentine was the subject of attack.