"Why, I tell you I can see it plain. Besides," and here she dropped her
voice, "Valentine, as he calls himself--though he ain't--as good as told
me. He did tell me, only I couldn't understand. He knew I couldn't--d'you
see? That's why he told me. Oh, if he'd only tell you!"
Fragments of Valentine's exposition of his deeds and of his strange
gospel were floating through Cuckoo's mind as fragments of broken wood
float by on a stream, fragments of broken wood that were part of a
puzzle, that should be rescued by some strong hand from the stream,
and fitted together into a perfect whole.
"Valentine! You say he told you that he was ruining Julian?"
Unconsciously the doctor used the Christian names. His doing so set
Cuckoo more at her ease.
"Yes. Not like that. But he told me. He ain't what you think, nor what
Julian thinks. He's somebody else, and you can't tell it. He's laughing
at you all."
Thus the gospel came forth from the painted lips of Cuckoo, crude and
garbled, yet true gospel. The doctor was completely puzzled. All he
gathered from this announcement was that Valentine seemed in some way
to have been confiding in this girl of the streets. Such a fact was
sufficiently astounding. That they should ever have been associated
together in any way was almost incredible to any one who knew Valentine.
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