The rift
in the glory of the Litany came with that. Valentine was trying to close
it by this act of sitting, to impress the strength of his will upon his
companions in the darkness. The doctor felt his effort like a continually
repeated blow, stealthy and hard and merciless.
And now, in the darkness and in the silence, the doctor heard the mind of
Julian. Another scent floated through that imagined damp and breathing
wood from another--but how different--soul-flower. No Litany of triumph
murmured in the blackness where Julian sat, but a hoarse and broken solo,
part despair, part fear, part anger, and all perplexed and flooded with
bewilderment and with excitement. The doctor drew into him the murmur
of Julian's mind until it seemed to become, for the time, the murmur of
his own mind. He was conscious of a dreadful turmoil of doubt, and dread
and perplexity, so strong, so painful, that it lay upon him like a dense
and a suffocating burden. In that moment he knew utterly that the
greatest load in the world laid on any man is the load of his own,
perhaps beloved, sin. He was staggering wearily with Julian away from
the light. His eyes were dim--with the eyes of Julian. His ears, like
Julian's, were assailed with the dastard clamour of the calling sin.
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