“A man may change radically,” he said, “if he becomes insane.”

A short breath, like a sigh, came from Cuckoo.  Valentine stood quite still, regarding the doctor closely for a moment.  Then he said contemptuously: 

“Mad!  Oh, madmen don’t interest me.”

The doctor had gained nothing from his experiment.  It was impossible to gather from Valentine’s manner that he was in any way struck by this suggestion, and indeed he abandoned all allusion to it with careless haste, and returned to that other suggestion of which the doctor himself had thought nothing.

“Supposing the soul of a man to be expelled,” he said, abruptly, “where—­where do you suppose it would go, would be?”

It was obvious that he endeavoured to speak lightly, but there was a most peculiar anxiety visible in his manner.  The doctor wondered from what cause it sprang.

“I have never formed a supposition on that matter,” he said.

“Well—­well—­try to form one now.  Yes, and you, Julian, too.”

He did not address himself to the lady of the feathers, but he looked at her long and narrowly.  The doctor lit another cigarette.  He seemed to be seriously considering this odd question.  Julian, whose lethargy was changing into an almost equally pronounced excitement, was not so hesitating.  As if struck by a sudden flashing idea, he exclaimed: 

“How if it was in the air?  How if it was wandering about from place to place.  By God, Val!” he cried, with emphasis, “do you know what I read in a book I took up from your shelves the other day—­something about souls being like flames?  It was in Rossetti:  Flames!”

He turned to Cuckoo and stared into her eyes.

“I was half asleep when I read it,” he said.  “Why should I remember it now?  That flame—­I saw that flame months ago.”  He seemed like a man puzzling something out, trying to trace a way through a tangled maze of thought that yet might be clear.  “It came from you, Val, that night, with a cry like a lost thing.  A soul expelled, did you say?”

Suddenly his face was set in an awestruck gravity.

“Why—­but then, if so, that flame would be you.  Valentine, the flame that seemed to haunt me, that I have seen in—­”

He looked at Cuckoo again and was silent.

“Yes, Julian?” Valentine said in a hard, thin voice.  “Go on, I am listening.”

Julian stared at him with strong excitement.

“And what are you, then, Valentine?  Where do you come from?” he said slowly.

“From Marr.”

The words came from the divan, from the dry lips of Cuckoo.  Doctor Levillier knew not why, but he was thrilled to the very soul by them, as by a revelation throwing strong light upon the depths of things.  Whether it was the influence of this strange scented room, in which strange things had happened, or the influence of the hour and the climax and death of the year, or a voice in his heart speaking to him