Part 86 (2/2)

”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. Cresswell pursues Julian; you must pursue him, use your woman's wit, use all your experience of men; use your heart. Wake up and throw yourself into this battle, and make yourself worthy of fighting. Only you can tell how. But this is a fact. Our wills, our powers of doing things, are made strong, or made weak by our own lives. Each time we do a degradingly low, beastly thing”--he chose the words most easily comprehended by such a woman as she was--”we weaken our will, and make it less able to do anything good for another. If you commit loveless actions from to-day--though Julian has nothing to do with them--with each loveless action you will lose a point in the battle against the madness of Cresswell. And you must lose no points. Remember you are fighting a madman, as I believe, for the safety of the man you love. If I could tell you what--”

The doctor pulled himself up short.

”No,” he said, ”no need to tell you more than that, within these last few days I have found that all you said about Cresswell's present _diablerie_”--he shook his head impatiently at the language he was using to the lady of the feathers--”Cresswell's present impulse for evil is less horribly true than the truth. I shall watch him, day by day, from now. And if I can act, I shall do so. If his insanity is too sharp for me, as it may well be, I shall be checkmated in any effort to forcibly keep him from doing harm. In that case I can only trust to you, and hope that some chance circ.u.mstance may lead to the opening of Julian's eyes. But they are closed--closed fast. In any case you will help me and I will help you. You shall have opportunities of meeting Julian often. I will arrange that. And Cresswell--”

He paused as if in deep thought.

”How to do it,” he murmured, almost to himself. ”How to bring this battle to the issue!”

Then he turned his eyes on Cuckoo.

She was sitting bolt upright in the carriage. Her cheeks were flushed.

Her hollow eyes were sparkling. She had drawn her hands out from under the rug and clasped them together in her lap.

”Oh, I'll do anything I can,” she said, ”anything. And--and I can do that one thing!”

”Yes,” said the doctor. ”Which?”

”The thing that he asked me once, and what I said no to,” she answered, but in such a low murmur that the doctor scarcely caught the words.

He leaned forward in the carriage.

”Home now, Grant,” he said to the coachman. ”Or--no--drive first to 400 Marylebone Road.”

The doctor turned again towards Cuckoo. 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, pa.s.sing rapidly through the biting cold of the late winter afternoon.

The red cloud near the fainting sun broke and parted.

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