With his eyes wide open Valentine gazed in the direction of Julian, sitting invisible opposite to him.  He wondered how Julian was feeling, what he was thinking.  And then he remembered that strange saying of Marr’s, that thoughts could take form, materialize.  What would he give to witness that monstrous procession of embodied brain-actions trooping from the mind of his friend!  He imagined them small, spare, phantom-like things, fringed with fire, as weapon against the darkness, silent-footed as spirits, moving with a level impetus, as pale ghosts treading a sea, onward to the vast world of clashing minds, to which we carelessly cast out our thoughts as a man who shoots rubbish into a cart.  The vagrant fancies danced along with attenuated steps and tiny, whimsical gestures of fairies, fluttering their flame-veined wings.  The sad thoughts moved slowly with drooped heads and monotonous hands, and tears fell forever about their feet.  The thoughts that were evil—­and Julian had acknowledged them many, though combatted—­were endowed with a strangely sinister gait, like the gait of those modern sinners who express, ignorantly, in their motions the hidden deeds their tongues decline to speak.  The wayward thoughts had faces like women, who kiss and frown within the limits of an hour.  On the cheeks of the libertine thoughts a rosy cloud of rouge shone softly, and their haggard eyes were brightened by a cunning pigment.  And the noble thoughts, grand in gesture, godlike in bearing, did not pass them by, but spoke to them serene words, and sought to bring them out from their degradation.  And there was no music in this imagined procession which Valentine longed to see.  All was silent as from the gulf of Julian’s mind the inhabitants stole furtively to do their mission.  Yes, Valentine knew to-night that he should feel no wonder if thought took form, if a disembodied voice spoke, or a detached hand moved into ripples of the air.  Only he was irritated and alarmed by the abiding sense of some surrounding danger, which stayed with him, which he fought against in vain.  His common sense had not deserted him.  On the contrary, it was argumentative, cogent in explanation and in rebuke.  It strove to sneer his distress down with stinging epithets, and shot arrows of laughter against his aimless fears.  But the combat was, nevertheless, tamely unequal.  Common sense was routed by this enigmatic enemy, and at length Valentine’s spirits became so violently perturbed that he could keep silence no longer.

“Julian,” he said, with a pressure of chained alarm in his voice, “Julian!”

“Yes,” Julian replied, tensely.

“Anything wrong with you?”

“No, no.  Or with you?”

“Nothing definite.”

“What then?”

“I will confess to you that to-night I feel—­I feel, well, horribly afraid.”

“Of what?”

“I have no idea.  The feeling is totally unreasonable.  That gives it an inexplicable horror.”