Only once had the lady of the feathers known such enfeebling terror as this, on the night when she fled from the hotel in the Euston Road and left Marr dying on the bed between the tall windows. More than once, in her thoughts, had she loosely linked Marr with Valentine, puzzled, scarcely knowing why she did so. And, she repeated the mental operation now more definitely. They had at least one thing in common, this extraordinary power of striking fear into her soul. And Cuckoo was not accustomed to sit with fear. Her life had bred in her a strong, tough-fibred restlessness. She was essentially a careless creature, ready to argue, quarrel, hold her own with anybody, proud, as a rule, of being a match for any man and well able to take care of herself. She had knocked about, and was utterly familiar with many horrors of the streets, and of nameless houses. She had heard many rows at night; had been in brawls; had been waked, in the dense hours, by sudden sharp cries for help; was accustomed to be alone with strangers, men of unknown history, of unknown deeds. And all these circumstances she met with absolute carelessness, with a devil-may-care laugh, or the sigh of one weary, but not afraid. She was no more timid than the average English street-boy. Only these two men, one dead, one alive, knew how to dress her in terror from head to foot, brain, heart, and body. And so she joined them in a ghastly brotherhood. But to-night she was making a conscious effort against the domination of Valentine, for the awakening of fear in her was counterbalanced by other feelings prompting her to fight. And once Cuckoo began to fight she felt that she would not lack courage. For she clung to action, and hated thought, walking clearly in the one, but through a maze in the other.