As he spoke he did not tell himself that it was nothing less than the disconnected and ungrammatical remarks of the lady of the feathers which prompted this consideration, this prophetic movement of his mind. Yet so it was. And when Valentine replied he, the saint, was fighting against her, the sinner, and surely in the cause of evil. For he said lightly:
"After all, do human souls travel? I often think they are like eyes looking at a whirling zoetrope. It is the zoetrope that travels."
"You think souls don't go up or down?"
"I think that none of us knows really much about souls, and that, after all, it is best not to bother ourselves too much about them."
"Marr thought a great deal about them. I used to fancy that as some maniacs have been known to murder people in order to tear out their hearts, he could have murdered them to tear out their souls."
Valentine took his hand from Julian's shoulder.
"Marr is dead and forgotten," he said almost sternly.
"I can't quite forget him, Val; and I still feel as if he had had some influence over both of us. We have changed since those days of the sittings, since that night of your trance and his death."
Julian was looking at Valentine in a puzzled way while he spoke.
Valentine met his eyes calmly.
"If I have changed," he said slowly, "it cannot be in essentials. Look at me. Is my face altered? Is my expression different?"