"She has called on you again, then, and this time found you at home. I scarcely thought she would take the trouble." "Again!" the doctor said. "Yes. One evening when you were away I saw her at your door and ventured to give her a piece of advice." "And that was?" "Not to trouble you. I told her your patients were of a different class." "In that case I fear you misrepresented me, Cresswell. I do not choose my patients. But Cuckoo Bright is no patient of mine." "If she's not ill," Julian said, "why should she go to you?" "That is her affair, and mine," the doctor answered, in his quietest and most finishing tone. Julian accepted the delicate little snub quietly, but Valentine sneered. "Perhaps she went to seek you in your capacity of a doctor of the mind rather than of the body. Perhaps, after all, she sought your aid." As he spoke the doctor could not help having driven into him the conviction that the words were spoken with meaning, that Valentine knew the nature of Cuckoo's mission to Harley Street. There rose in him suddenly a violent sensation of enmity against Valentine. He strove to beat it down, but he could not. Never had he felt such enmity against any man. It was like the fury so obviously felt by Cuckoo. The doctor was ashamed to be so unreasonable, and believed for a moment that the poor street-girl had absolutely swayed him, and predisposed him to this animus that surged up over his normal charity and good, clear impulses of tenderness for all that lived. "My aid," he said--and the turmoil within him caused him to speak with unusual sternness. "And if she did, what then?" "Poor Cuckoo!" Julian said, and there was a touch of real tenderness in his voice. "Oh, I have nothing to say against it," Valentine replied, buttoning slowly and carefully the last button of the second glove. "Only, Cuckoo Bright is beyond aid. She can neither help herself nor any one else." "How do you know, Cresswell?" "Because I have observed, doctor. Once I, too, thought that even Cuckoo might--might--well, have some fight in her. I know now that she has not. Her corruption of body has led to worse than corruption of mind, to corruption of will. Cuckoo Bright is as helpless as is a seabird with a shot through its wings, upon the sea. She can only drift in the present--die in the future." The doctor listened silently. But Julian said again: "Poor, poor Cuckoo!" The exclamation seemed to irritate Valentine, for he caught up his cloak and cried: "Bah! Let's forget her. Doctor, we must say good-night. We are due at the Prince's. It has been good to meet you again." The last words sounded like the bitterest sarcasm. CHAPTER IV THE DEATH OF RIP