You know that as well as I do." "Nonsense!" "But it is linked now while I am speaking." "I tell you it isn't." "I'll soon let you know it too.

There! Ah! no wonder you have snatched it away.

You forget that my muscles are like steel, and that I can pinch as a gin pinches a rabbit's leg.

I say, I didn't really hurt you, did I?
It was only a joke to stop your little game." "I tell you," Valentine said, almost angrily, "your hand has never once touched mine, nor mine yours." His accent of irritable sincerity appeared suddenly to carry conviction to the mind of Julian, for he sprang violently up from the table, and cried, in the darkness: "Then who the devil's in the room with us ?" Valentine also, convinced that Julian had not been joking, was appalled.

He switched on the light, and saw Julian standing opposite to him, looking very white.