The doctor pulled himself up short.

“No,” he said, “no need to tell you more than that, within these last few days I have found that all you said about Cresswell’s present diablerie”—­he shook his head impatiently at the language he was using to the lady of the feathers—­“Cresswell’s present impulse for evil is less horribly true than the truth.  I shall watch him, day by day, from now.  And if I can act, I shall do so.  If his insanity is too sharp for me, as it may well be, I shall be checkmated in any effort to forcibly keep him from doing harm.  In that case I can only trust to you, and hope that some chance circumstance may lead to the opening of Julian’s eyes.  But they are closed—­closed fast.  In any case you will help me and I will help you.  You shall have opportunities of meeting Julian often.  I will arrange that.  And Cresswell—­”

He paused as if in deep thought.

“How to do it,” he murmured, almost to himself.  “How to bring this battle to the issue!”

Then he turned his eyes on Cuckoo.

She was sitting bolt upright in the carriage.  Her cheeks were flushed.  Her hollow eyes were sparkling.  She had drawn her hands out from under the rug and clasped them together in her lap.

“Oh, I’ll do anything I can,” she said, “anything.  And—­and I can do that one thing!”

“Yes,” said the doctor.  “Which?”

“The thing that he asked me once, and what I said no to,” she answered, but in such a low murmur that the doctor scarcely caught the words.

He leaned forward in the carriage.

“Home now, Grant,” he said to the coachman.  “Or—­no—­drive first to 400 Marylebone Road.”

The doctor turned again towards Cuckoo.  She was looking away from him, so much that he was obliged to believe that she wished to conceal her face, which was towards the sunset.

The sky over London glowed with a dull red like a furnace.  It deepened, while they looked, passing rapidly through the biting cold of the late winter afternoon.

The red cloud near the fainting sun broke and parted.

Spears of gold were thrust forth.

“Flames,” the doctor whispered to himself.  “Flames!  The will, the soul of God in nature.”

PART V—­FLAMES

CHAPTER I

VALENTINE INVITES HIS GUESTS

Valentine and Julian sat together in the tentroom at night, as they sat together many months ago, when Julian confessed his secret and Valentine expressed his strange desire to have a different soul.  Now it was deep winter.  The year was old.  In three days it must die.  It lay in the snow, like some abandoned beggar waiting for the inevitable end.  Some, who were happy, would fain have succoured it and kept it with them.  Others, who were sad, said:  “Let it go—­this beggar.  Already it has taken too many alms from us.”  But neither the happy nor the sad could affect its fate.  So it lay in the snow and in the wind, upon its deathbed.