Flames

envelope two or three times and considered who the writer might be. It struck him at once that the writing ought to be familiar to him and capable of instant identification. The name

it was like a bad photograph of the original, imitating, closely enough, all the main points of the original, yet leaving out all the character, all the delicacy of it. For Valentine's handwriting had always seemed to Julian to express his nature. It was rather large and very cle

R JU

and persuade Rip to restore me to his confidence. I hope you will be

r yo

ENTI

again, and closely, at the writing,-"or in a temper less delightfully calm and seraphic than usual. Yes, it looks actually a bad-tempered hand.

ctly the dog caught sight of its master all the hair along the middle of its back bristled on end, a

ne?" he said, as he came back. "This

o pass away. There was something uncanny about that

his head upon your arm as contented as possible. It was only just as you began

e you seen

the club. I am so gla

s lying back in a big ch

nd serene, and he had ne

peared much more decis

notic

ositively to have do

death of the senses has rested me wonderful

ised at anything to-day. Indeed, I have found myself dwelling with childish pleasure up

as-w

such as

ning to companion him, and described how he had thought he saw it when he was gazing at

ou say you were staring v

es

e flame in daylight. If you look very steadily at some object, a

hadow of a flame when I was not

he

into the room I saw it

are s

ve so. Y

his soul, if soul

ought not to have played at spiritualis

was looking anxi

e not stopped i

raised his

t under

ite to him, leaning against the m

Julian said. "I feel that to-day, so strongly. I feel that perhaps we have

you are unstrung by th

's voice did not seem to

am with you, I am attac

t is

even though we strive to forget it, and to forg

fluence of Valentine's mood. Indeed, this new anxiety of his was on

has its following con

the falseness of the doctrine. Suppose I kiss a woman. I may do so with intention to make her love me, or, on the other hand, to make her hate me. The chances are that she does neither the one no

rs say so, especially those who are inclined to deny the Deity. They put their faith in the chai

, this is nonsense. We have sat once too often, and the consequence followed, and is over: I went into a trance. I have

ppose

er it seems likely to affect those devils that make the hell of the phy

ve not thought about it," Ju

with m

Vale

sitated,

oria Street, if

en; or shall we

ll,-the

ou to give the shelter of your roof to Rip till he

he consequences which might follow upon a sitting, or series of sittings, undertaken by two people for some reason unsuited to carry out such an enterprise together. That Marr would be in the club he felt no shadow of doubt. Apparently the

d the club from end to end without finding the objec

r in the cl

been in at all since

tha

no idea where Marr lived, so there was nothing to be done. He went back to his rooms, dressed for dinner, and was at the Berkeley by five minutes past eight. The restaurant was

eemed quite unconscious of the many glances directed towards him. He never succeeded in passing unnoticed anywhere, and alth

red a pretty girl to her companion. "What

. James's Hall even if he couldn't play a note. I never can understand how Cresswell m

eternity. We only have to keep the wrinkles at bay for a f

ad said something smart. As her laugh was dutifully echoed by the man who was

ly Juli

he club this

d y

have a talk with

glass of champagne which he was

pearance of haste. Then he seemed to

d him, I

N

ually there, apparently

t been in at all. Perhaps

proba

ne and Julian sat. One of them knew Julian and nodded as he passed. He was just on the point of sitting do

at Lady Crichton's, wher

es

ews to-night, wasn'

looked

dy Crichton

I meant about that

is seat and regarded th

is it? Has he h

arranging the gardenia in his coat, and

peated, without e

-bye. Going on

o, but Julian

ent. When d

ead of the night, or

at

e at home, but in a private hotel, in the Euston Road, the 'European.' He

n and murmured someth

presently. 'In the

applying his intellect to

But he did not go on eating the cutlet in aspic that lay u

rribly

sympathetically. "He mus

ose so. Valentine,

hom you saw so recently, and I

. Abso

wed the waiter to take away his

fellow, Val; and, as I told you, might, I believe, in time have gained a sort of influence over me,-not like yours, of course, but he certainly had

hy

itive about people, you might have read him. I could not. And he was a fellow worth reading,

Julian talked on about Marr rather excitedly.

It is only a quarter past

nk not-wait-y

gulp, in a way that would have ma

hall we

n ans

n Road. To th

'Euro

de the strangeness in our lives. But for him these curious events of the last days would not have

The two things were

ow how he died. I must see what he lo

. But we may no

e that someho

the day, had changed, and rain was falling in sheets. They stood in the doorway while the hall-porter called a cab. Piccadilly on such a night as this looked perhaps more decisively dreary than a

ld go with them, having no home. A hansom went by with the glass down, a painted face staring through it upon the yellow mud that splashed round the horse's feet. Suddenly the horse slipped and came down. The glass splintered as the painted and now screaming face was dashed through it. A wet crowd of roughs and pavement vagabonds gathered and made hoarse remarks on the woma

ight," Julian said as he and

y contemplation of its horror

eplied, with a curious obstinacy.

otel, in the Euston Road

ou kn

smiling on his perch as he cracked h

door of the Criterion Restaurant an enormously fat and white bookmaker in a curly hat and diamonds muttered remarks into the ear of an unshaven music-hall singer. A gigantic "chucker-out" observed them with the dull gaze of sullen habit, and a beggar-boy whined to them in vain for alms, then fluttered into obscurity. Fixed with corner stones upon the wet pavement of the "island" lay in an unwinking row the contents bill of the evening papers, proclaiming in gigantic black or red letters the facts of suicide, slander, divorce, murder, railway accidents, fires, and war complications. Dreary men read them with dreary, unexcited eyes, then forked out halfpence to raucous youths whose arms were full of damp sheets of pink paper. A Guardsman kissed "good-bye" to his tre

Julian," Valentine said. "Let us

to have sprung into prominence. Of course I go about every day in Piccadilly, St. James's Street, everywhere; but it is as if my eyes had been always shut, and now they are open. I ca

ays fe

lly or c

ruly either. Calmly or contemptu

hordes of women standing hour after hour in the rain, and those boys se

ubt whether I shou

I dare say, but intell

quite so much license in the future as I have per

re crossing at that moment. Julian, who had apparently continued dwelling on the train

full of prose, although many clever writers have represented it as splendidly decorated wit

diction on it. I know what you mean. But the whole question is one of weather, I think. Vanity Fair on a hot, sweet summer night, with a huge gold

say ne

ins as well as plush sins, and the man who can find the velvet is the lucky fellow. Si

tty sure all virtue is velvet and all

dressmaker you meet. Bloomsbury i

watching Julian with a fixed and narrow scrutiny, which Julian failed

m are full of solicit

l conscience-money to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. People looked furtive, and went in and out of the houses furtively. They crawled rather than pranced, and their bodies bore themselves with a depression that seemed indiscreet. Occasionally men with dripping umbrellas knocked at the doors under the red glass, and disappeared into narrow passages inhabited by small iron umbrella-stands. Night brooded here like a dyspeptic raven with moulting tail-feathers and ragged wings. But London is eloquent of surprises. T

the fleeting names, until his eyes were

along the stones. It tried to sit down, was hauled up by the reins, and stood trembling as the right wheel of

t further on," said the cabby, leering do

of moisture from his waterpro

on gate, and they walked up