“Good God, it’s true!” he said.  “Cuckoo starving!”

He sat by her turning this piercing matter over in his mind.  Its strangeness helped to sober him.

“You eat too,” she said.

He shook his head.

“Yes, yes,” she insisted feverishly.

To pacify her he made a sort of attempt at breakfast, and felt the better for it.  Together they progressed slowly towards the normal.  At last the meal was over.  Cuckoo lay back, feeling wonderfully better and calm and happy.  But Julian’s eyes were searching hers insistently.

“What have you been doing?” he said.  “You’ve got to tell me.  Starving!  What’s the meaning of it?”

His voice sounded almost angry and threatening.

“I ain’t got any money,” she said.

“Why?”

She didn’t answer.

“Why—­I say?” he repeated.

“Because I’ve given up the street,” she said simply.

“Given up the street—­Cuckoo!”

He laid his hand down heavily upon one of hers.

“Since when?”

“Oh—­a little while.  It don’t matter how long.”

He sat glancing about the room.

“Where’s Jessie?” he asked suddenly.

Cuckoo burst out crying.

“I had to—­I had to,” she sobbed.

“To do what?”

“To part with her.”

“What!  You’ve sold Jessie!”

Julian stood up.  This last fact struck right home to him, banishing all his vagueness, setting his mind on its feet firmly.

“Jessie sold!” he exclaimed again, in a loud voice.  “Cuckoo, why have you done this?  Tell me—­tell me at once.”

She strove to control her sobs.

“I didn’t know what to do to get you away from him,” she said presently, flushing scarlet.  “I didn’t never see you; I didn’t know where you was.  I knew as you didn’t like me going on the street.  Once you asked me not to.  Remember?”

Julian nodded, with a piercing gaze on her.

“So—­so thinks I—­I’ll keep away; p’rhaps it’ll get him back.”

“Me?”

He sat down with a white face.  All about him there was flame.  He seemed to understand what he had never understood before, the wonder of the lady of the feathers, the mystery that had drawn him so strangely to her.  He caught her in his arms.

“Oh, Cuckoo, Cuckoo,” he said, brokenly.  “You love me.”

He laid his lips on hers, and pressed her mouth in a passion of emotion that was almost an assault.  And still the fire was about him.  She clung to him with her thin arms.

“That’s it,” she whispered, in reply to his words.

Julian held her in silence, felt her heart beating, the piteous tenuity of her little body, the weak grasp of her arms round him.  These things broke upon him one by one with a crescendo of meaning that came like a great revelation, came to him shod with flame, winged with flame, moving in flame, warm like flame.