"No", said Cuckoo, her eyes fixed hungrily on the doctor's face. She began to tug at her veil. "What's it? Is he--is he?" She collapsed into a nervous silence, still tugging with a futile hand at the veil, which remained implacably stretched across her face. The doctor looked at her, and said steadily: "He has gone a little further--down. You understand me?" "I ought to," she said, bitterly. "As you are mounting upward," the doctor rejoined, with a kind and firm gravity that seemed indeed to lift Cuckoo, as a sweet wind lifts a feather and sends it on high. The bitterness went out of her face, but she said nothing, only sat listening attentively while the doctor went on: "My belief is this, and if you hold it you can perhaps act in this matter with more boldness, more fearlessness, than if you do not hold it. I believe that Mr. Cresswell, who played very foolish tricks with his nerves some time ago, just before he got to know you, has become mad to this extent, that he believes himself to have a power of will unlike that possessed by any other man,--an inhuman power, in fact. He fancies that he has the will of a sort of god, and he wishes to prove this to himself more especially. Everything is for self in a madman. Now he looks about for a means of proving that his will can do everything. He wants to make it do something extraordinary, uncommon. What does he find for it to do? This, the ruin of Julian. And now I'll tell you why this ruin of Julian would be a peculiar triumph for his will. Originally, when Cresswell was sane and splendid, his splendour of sanity guarded Julian from all that was dangerous. Julian was naturally inclined to be wild. He has an ardent nature, and five years ago, when he was a mere boy, might have fallen into a thousand follies. Cresswell's influence first kept him from these follies, and at last taught him to loathe and despise them. And Julian, remember this, told Cresswell at last that he had been to him a sort of saviour. You can follow me?" "'M," Cuckoo ejaculated with shut mouth and a nod of her head.