“Strange,” Valentine murmured.

“Deucedly strange! and, what’s more, diabolically unpleasant.”

“I wonder what that fellow, Marr, would say to this.”

“Marr!  By Jove, is this one of the manifestations which he spoke about so vaguely?”

“It seems like it.”

“But describe your sensations.  You say you felt horribly afraid.  Why was that?”

“I can’t tell.  That, I think, made part of the horror.  There was a sort of definite vagueness, if you can imagine such a seeming contradiction, in my state of mind.  But the feeling is really indescribable.  That it was more strange and more terrible than anything I have known is certain.  I should like to ask Dr. Levillier about all this.”

“Levillier—­yes.  But he would—­”

“Be reasonable about it, as he is about everything.  Dear, sensible, odd, saintly, emotional, strong-headed, soft-hearted little doctor.  He is unique.”

They talked on for some time, arriving at no conclusion, until it seemed they had talked the whole matter thoroughly out.  Yet Valentine, who was curiously instinctive, had, all the time, a secret knowledge that Julian was keeping something from him, was not being perfectly frank.  The conviction pained him.  At last Julian got up to go.  He stood putting on his overcoat.

“Good-night,” he said.

“Good-night, Julian.”

“Now—­is this to be our last sitting?”

Valentine hesitated.

“What do you wish?” he asked at length.

“What do you?”

“Well, I—­yes, I think I would rather it was the last.”

Julian caught his hand impulsively.

“So would I. Good-night.”

“Good-night.”

Julian went out into the hall, got as far as the front door, opened it, then suddenly called out: 

“Valentine!”

“Yes.”

“Come here for a moment.”

Valentine went, and found him standing with his hand on the door, looking flushed and rather excited.

“There is one thing I haven’t told you,” he began.

“I knew that.”

“I guessed you did.  The most horrible sensation I have had.  During our sitting to-night—­don’t be vexed—­an extraordinary apprehension of—­well, of you, came over me.  There!  Now I have told you.”

Valentine was greatly astonished.

“Of me?” he said.

“Yes.  There was a moment when the idea that I was alone with you made my blood run cold.”

“Good heavens!”

“Do you wish I hadn’t told you?”

“No, of course not.  But it is so extraordinary, so unnatural.”

“It is utterly gone now, thank God.  I say, we have resolved that we won’t sit again, haven’t we?”

“Yes; and what you have just told me makes me hate the whole thing.  The game seems a game no longer.”

When the door had closed upon Julian, Valentine sat down and wrote a note.