He did not know it, yet he was vaguely aware that he began to
move in the midst of unwonted circumstances. Cuckoo had not been able
wholly to conceal from him her strong mental excitement. Since her
conversation with the doctor she had become a different woman. For the
one word had been spoken which could change weakness into strength,
utter self-distrust into something that at least resembled self-reliance.
The doctor had broken Valentine's spell over Cuckoo with that word. He
believed in her. He told her to fight. He assumed that she had some
power, even more power for Julian than he had. "Only you can do it," he
had said. The sentence armed her from head to foot, put weapons in her
hands, light in her hollow eyes, a leaping exultation in her heart. The
flickering power that she had marvelled at, and then despaired of, burnt
up at last into a strong flame. That evening it had dazzled Julian's
eyes. He seemed to see a new Cuckoo, and he was thinking of her as he
walked along now in the frost under the stars. His meditation was not
very intellectual or very profound, for since the change in his life
Julian had put his old intellectualities away from him. Passion, so
long guarded, so bravely repressed, once it had broken loose stormed
all the heights of his nature, and drove every sentiment that tried to
oppose it into exile.
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