It was the doctor who spoke, and he spoke without special interest, simply expressing his thought of what might happen in so whimsical an event as that harped upon by Valentine. But Valentine seemed painfully struck by the almost idle words.
"Elsewhere!" he exclaimed, with a lowering expression. "What do you mean, doctor? What do you imply?"
The doctor looked at him surprised.
"Merely that a thing expelled is not necessarily a thing slain. If you turn me out of this room I am not certain to expire on the doormat."
Valentine broke into a nervous and uneasy laugh, and cast a quick glance all around him, and especially on Cuckoo, who sat listening silently with her eyebrows drawn together in a pent frown of puzzled attention.
"I see, I see," he said hastily. And here Julian broke in.
"But the whole thing's impossible," he said with a laugh.
"You would say so, doctor?"
Valentine addressed this question to Doctor Levillier in a very marked and urgent manner.
"You would say so, since the will of man cannot perform miracles?"