She was looking away from him, so
much that he was obliged to believe that she wished to conceal her face,
which was towards the sunset.
The sky over London glowed with a dull red like a furnace. It deepened,
while they looked, passing rapidly through the biting cold of the late
winter afternoon.
The red cloud near the fainting sun broke and parted.
Spears of gold were thrust forth.
"Flames," the doctor whispered to himself. "Flames! The will, the soul of
God in nature."
PART V--FLAMES
CHAPTER I
VALENTINE INVITES HIS GUESTS
Valentine and Julian sat together in the tentroom at night, as they sat
together many months ago, when Julian confessed his secret and Valentine
expressed his strange desire to have a different soul. Now it was deep
winter. The year was old. In three days it must die. It lay in the snow,
like some abandoned beggar waiting for the inevitable end. Some, who were
happy, would fain have succoured it and kept it with them. Others,
who were sad, said: "Let it go--this beggar. Already it has taken too
many alms from us." But neither the happy nor the sad could affect its
fate. So it lay in the snow and in the wind, upon its deathbed.
The tentroom had not been altered.
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