Once again the notes of Valentine’s Litany stole upon his heart.  And to-night they seemed to him louder, more strident than before, as if blared from a soul that held a veritable brass band of shrill egoism within it.  The doctor listened.  He remembered presently that the former Litany had been broken sometimes, hesitating, that Valentine had been assailed by vague fears that stole upon him like ghosts from the lady of the feathers.  To-night those little ghosts were laid.  They came not.  It seemed that Valentine had conquered them.  No longer did they crowd to hear the bold fury of the Litany.  No longer dared even one to creep along alone to bend and to listen.  The doctor knew then that this night was not destined to be a mere echo of its fore-runner.  It was at first as if Valentine had closed the rift in his lute, had bridged the gulf between his trial and his triumph.  A tremendous sadness came upon the doctor with this thought, enveloping him in a cloud of cold.  His heart fainted within him, as at some great catastrophe.  He could have wept like a man who finds the trust of his life ill-founded, the faith in which he has dwelt builded upon the quicksand.  He fancied that Valentine instantly became aware of his distress, and that the knowledge swelled the mighty tide of the music of the Litany.  And this thought struck him and roused the man in him, like the call of circumstance on valour, crying:  “Will a man say that anything is irrevocable, while there is breath in him to give the battle-cry, strength in him to stir a limb?” Then the faintness left him with the demeanour of that which is ashamed.  The cold cloud evaporated.  He heard the Litany without fear, but with a great desire to strike a lightning silence through it, with a fine hatred that destroyed his former hopelessness.  This blatant will that sang ever the song of self, that had no desire but to itself, no glory but in its own deeds, no aim but to impress itself upon some slave, some Julian of this world, stood before the doctor’s imagination like a personality, a devil embodied,—­more, like the devil of whom men and women speak, against whom religion prays, and strives and rears great churches, and consecrates priests.  Egoism developed to the utmost limits, is that the Devil?  The doctor asked himself the question, and the great shadow that dogs the steps of life went by him on its black mission in the likeness of Valentine singing.  And all the modern world stood still to hear and whispered:  “Hark!  It is an angel singing!  If we but echo the song we touch the stars.  If we but echo the song we, who are weary of time, shall know eternity.  If we but echo the song we shall lay grief to rest beneath many roses, and draw from its sculptured sepulchre the radiant form of joy.  We shall sing that we shall be great.”  And the modern world lifted up its voice, and when it sang, harmony was slain by discord.

The doctor shuddered, seeing an inferno of many circles.  But the coward in him did not rise again.  There was the gleam of a distant light upon him, unquenchable and serene.  He doubted the eternity of the triumph of this Valentine, though he knew not why he doubted, nor upon what his doubts were based.