The doctor lowered his voice still more. Quite at a venture he drew a
bow, and with his first arrow smote the lady of the feathers to the
heart.
"Has Julian ever asked you to do anything?" he said.
Suddenly Cuckoo's face was scarlet.
"Why? How d' you know?" she stammered.
"Anything for him that was not evil?" the doctor pursued, following out
an abstract theory, not as Cuckoo fancied, dealing with known facts. "I
know nothing. I only ask you to try and remember, to search your mind."
There was no need for the lady of the feathers to do that.
"Yes, he did once," she said, looking still confused and furtive.
"Was it difficult?"
She hesitated.
"I s'pose so," she answered at last.
"Did you do it?"
"No."
The doctor had noticed that his questions gave pain.
"I don't want to know what it was and I don't ask," he said. "I have
neither the right to, nor the desire to. But can't you do it, and show
Julian that you have done it? If you do I think he will see that flame,
which he fears and which fascinates him, burn more clearly, more
steadily, in your eyes."
"I'll see," Cuckoo said with a kind of gulp.
"Do more than this. This is only a part, one weapon in the fight.
Cresswell is always near Julian; you must be near him.
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