"Am I mad?" he suddenly cried to them. "I saw the flame in her eyes again to-day, in Cuckoo's eyes. It held me with her. I'll swear it held me. It wouldn't let me go--wouldn't let me--till now!" He sank down in a chair by the window, and turning his back on them, pushed his head out to get air. "I say," he suddenly called. "What's that, that lying there?" Valentine and the doctor joined him. He was pointing to the body of Rip, which was already almost covered by the snow. "That," Valentine said; "that is--" "The body of a creature that died fighting," the doctor interrupted. "A fine fashion of dying. Look at it, Julian. Its soul was indomitable to the last, and so it won the battle it fought. It won by its very death even. Nature is at work on its winding-sheet." Valentine said nothing. CHAPTER V DOCTOR LEVILLIER VISITS THE LADY OF THE FEATHERS Julian's utterance about the flame that held him with the lady of the feathers struck Dr. Levillier forcibly at the time it was made, and remained in his mind. He could not fail to connect it with his own experience in Valentine's empty room, and, going further back, with the last sitting of the two young men which was succeeded by the long trance of Valentine. And as he thought of these things, it suddenly occurred to him that the ghastly change which had taken place in Valentine might well date from that night. Since the death of Rip the doctor had formed the opinion that Valentine was no longer perfectly sane. His excitement, the fury of his eyes when he spoke of the triumphs of will, seemed to give the clue to his transformation. The insane perpetually glorify themselves, and are transcendent egoists. Surely the egoism of insanity had peeped out in Valentine's diatribe upon the eternity of a strong man's individual will. The night of the trance had been a strange crisis of his life. He had seemed to recover from it, to come back from that wonderful simulation of death healthy, calm, reasonable as before. This might have been only seeming. In that sleep the sane and beautiful Valentine might have died, the insane and unbeautiful Valentine have been born. There are many instances of a sudden and acute shock to the nervous system leaving an indelible and dreary writing upon the nature. If Valentine had thus been tossed to madness, it was very possible that his dog, an instinctive creature, should recognize the change with terror. It was even possible that other instinctive creatures should divine the hideous mind of a maniac hidden in the beautiful body of an apparently normal man. And Cuckoo, she too was instinctive, a girl without education, culture, the reading that opens the mind and sometimes shuts the eyes. Cuckoo Bright, she had divined the evil of Valentine. To her he had made confession. In her eyes Julian had seen the mysterious flame. Some influence from her had kept him from his invited guests and from his house. Yes, Cuckoo, the