Doctor Levillier ignored the remark. His professional interest was beginning to be aroused. For the first time he felt convinced that some very peculiar and bizarre change was dawning over the youth he knew so well. He wanted to watch it grow or fade, to analyze it, to study it, to be aware of its exact nature. But he did not want to put either Valentine or Julian upon the alert. So he spoke lightly as he said: "But I shall soon get the better of my fatigue, even without the usual medicine. Cresswell, take my advice, give your music a rest. Lock your piano again for a while. It will be better." Valentine shut down the lid on the instant, and turned the little key in the lock. "Adieu to my companion of many lonely hours!" he said with a half whimsical pensiveness. Then, as if in joke, he held out his hand with the key in it, to the doctor. "Will you take charge of this hostage?" he asked. "Yes," the doctor replied. Quite gravely he took the key and put it into his pocket. And so it was that silence fell round the Saint of Victoria Street. CHAPTER III THE FLIGHT OF THE BATS Julian had resolved to keep his compact with the lady of the feathers. He had learned partially to understand the curious and beautiful attitude which her mind had assumed towards him, polluted as it must be by the terror and working out of her fate, by many dreary actions, and by many vile imaginings. But although he held to his promise he did not, after that night of crisis, resume his former career of asceticism tempered by winds of temptation which could never blow his casement open. There are men who can vary the fine monotony of virtue by an occasional deliberate error, and who return from such an excursion into dangerous by-paths drilled and comforted, as it appears, for further journeying along the main road of their respectability. But Julian was not such a man. He resembled rather the morphia victim, or the inebriate, who must at all hazards abstain from any indulgence, even the smallest, in drug or draught, lest the demon who has such charm for him clasp him in imperturbable arms, and refuse with the steadfastness of a once-tricked Venus ever to let him go again. Valentine's empire of five years was broken in one night.