In the silence that had come upon his guests, Valentine turned to them,
and said:
"We are supposed to be here for a sitting. Well, shall we have it?"
"Yes--yes," Julian said, "a last sitting."
"Why--last?"
Julian sat up on the divan, and his hands were clenched on the cushions.
"Because if nothing happens to-night I'll give it up. I'll never sit
again. And if Cuckoo sleeps--"
He paused.
"She will sleep," Valentine said. "I have the power to make her."
"No," said Cuckoo.
"Don't you think so, doctor?"
"It seemed so the other night," the doctor answered.
"And with each sitting my power will increase. Do you hear, Julian?"
"You're very fond of talking about your power," Julian said, roughly.
"No. But I may be very fond of exercising it. Why help me, then, by
sitting?"
He spoke in a bantering tone. Julian began to look doubtful. Could it
be that all was changed, that there was only danger in this act, that to
grope thus in the darkness for lost hope, lost safety, a lost Valentine,
with love, trust, beauty, still clinging about him, was to stumble
further into a deepening night? It might be so. And if Cuckoo slept--!
Valentine smiled at this wavering approach of indecision. But Doctor
Levillier said, decisively:
"I wish to sit.
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