The spirit of sleep stole away.  His work was accomplished.  Julian sank forward upon the table with a gesture of utter abnegation.  He thought that Cuckoo was dead.  He felt that she was dead, as long ago he had felt that his loved friend, that Valentine who had protected him and taught him the right way of life, was dead in the night.

Doctor Levillier seemed to see Rip crouching down against the wall.

And now Valentine’s will prepared to assert itself finally.  It rose up to triumph as it had risen up to triumph over Rip.  Was that struggle going to be repeated?  Nothing had intruded upon it except the marvellous tenacity of the dog, who had died rather than yield obedience, died fighting.  That tenacity surely did not dwell in the nerveless Julian, utterly despairing, utterly wrecked.

The doctor trembled, feeling that the close of the strange mystery was at hand.  And as he trembled he seemed to see in the dense darkness a tiny flame.  It shivered up in the blackness where Cuckoo slept, moved away from her, like a thing blown on a light wind, and flickered above the bowed, despairing head of Julian.  And, as he watched it, wondering, the doctor was conscious once more that there was a new presence in the room, something mysterious, intent, vehement, yet touched with a strange and pathetic helplessness, something that cried against itself, something that had suffered a martyrdom unknown, unequalled, in all the pale history of the martyrdoms of the world.  The doctor recalled the sitting of the former night and his impression then—­and again he was governed by the tragedy of this unknown soul.  Its despair laid upon him cold hands.  Its impotence crushed him.  He could have wept and prayed for it.  This was for a moment.  Then a new wonder grew in him.  His eyes were on the flame which burned above the bowed head of Julian, and presently, while he gazed, he seemed to see, beyond and through it—­as one who peers through a lit window—­the face of Valentine, the beautiful, calm, lofty Valentine whom once he had loved.  The face was white with a soft glory of endurance, and the eyes smiled like the eyes of a great king.  And the doctor knew comfort.  For this face, although marred by the shadow intense suffering ever leaves behind it, was instinct with the majesty of triumph.  And the eyes were bent on Julian.  Then Julian moved in the darkness and looked upward, despair seeking hope.

The man who sat by the doctor, and who was now nameless to him, was filled with a passionate fury.  The doctor heard the Litany of his glory cease, and the long pulse of his heart throbbing with effort.  His soul rose up, as the cruel spectre of the new Valentine had risen up to seize upon Rip, and moved towards Julian to dominate him finally, to draw him into its own eternal evil and pride and passion of degraded power.  But Julian stretched his arms towards the flame which drew its brightness and its force from Cuckoo sleeping.  That was a last battle of souls, and the allegory of it came clearly to the doctor’s mind.