"From what have I come, then?" he repeated.
Julian paused, as if he sought an answer, looking backwards into the
past. Suddenly he cried:
"From that trance! Yes; it was then. That flame going away, it was--it
must have been--Valentine."
"You talk like a madman."
But Julian did not heed the sneer. He was passionately engrossed by
the flood of thoughts that had come to him. He was struggling to wake
finally from the dreary and infamous dream in which he had been
walking--deceived, tricked, tyrant-ridden--for so long.
"But then Valentine is dead," he cried.
His face went white. He sank down, clinging suddenly to Cuckoo.
"Dead!" he repeated in a whisper.
The girl's touch was strangely warm on his hands, like fire. He looked up
into her eyes, seeking passionately for that flame that now he began
vaguely to connect with the Valentine he had lost.
"Or is he--?"
Julian hesitated, still gazing at the white and weary face of Cuckoo.
Suddenly Valentine said loudly:
"You are right. He is dead."
He laughed aloud.
"I killed him," he said, "when I took his place. Julian, you shall
know now, what the lady of the feathers knows already, what a human
will can do, when it is utterly content with itself, when it is trained,
developed, perfected.
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