His face was terrible.  Julian shrank from it.  He turned to Cuckoo.

“They feed on women too,” he said.  “On the souls of women.  Men say that magic is a dream and a chimera.  Women say that miracles are past, or that there never were such things.  But the power of sin is magical.  The death of beauty and of innocence in a soul is a miracle.  My power over you, Julian, is magic.  The bondage of your soul to mine is a miracle.  Come with me.”

“I will not come.”

But Julian’s face, his whole attitude, betokened the most piteous and degraded irresolution.  This man, this creature, governed him despite himself.  He felt once more for the hand of Cuckoo, and finding it, spoke again more firmly: 

“I’ll not come,” he said.  “I’ll stay with her.  I love her.”

Valentine cast a malign glance upon Cuckoo, but again fear seemed to draw near to him.  He made no answer.

“Only once I’ll come,” Julian said.  “To-night.  I lost Valentine in the dark.  In the dark I’ll seek for him, I’ll find him again.  Cuckoo shall come too, and the doctor.  That flame—­it went into the air.  I’ll find it—­I’ll find it again.”

“Come, then—­seek it—­seek Valentine.  But I, too, was with you in the dark.  And in the dark I will destroy you.  Till to-night then, Julian!”

He turned and went out.

CHAPTER IX

THE LAST SITTING

That evening Julian drove Cuckoo down Victoria Street.  On the way they scarcely spoke.  The doctor, summoned by a messenger, was there before them.  He, although ignorant of what had passed been Julian and Valentine, was deeply expectant.  Cuckoo was exhausted by the sleepless night of her vigil over Julian, and by the severe joy, almost like pain, that had burst upon her with his avowal and with his savage embrace.

When she entered the tentroom followed by Julian, she looked like a shadow gliding wearily through twilight.  The doctor was there with Valentine.  Valentine’s face was gay.  His manner was ardent, almost tempestuous.  The clear calmness so generally characteristic of him had vanished, swept away by the flood of his triumph perhaps.  Julian seemed nervous, and his appearance was so haggard as to be engrossing to any one who was observant.  There was a hunted, fearful look in his eyes.  His hands were never for a moment still.  He kept close to Cuckoo.  He even held her hands as he sat by her, and she felt that his were burning hot.  He scarcely noticed the doctor, who observed him closely.  Valentine watched his feverish excitement with laughing eyes.  Of those four people he alone seemed entirely untouched by any deep emotion, entirely master of himself.  For even Doctor Levillier was curiously moved that night, and was unable to suppress every trace of abnormal emotion.

They sat down.  There were no flowers in the room.  Valentine explained that he had remembered Cuckoo’s fainting fit and feared its renewal.