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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Prelude to Adventure, by Hugh Walpole
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Prelude to Adventure
+
+Author: Hugh Walpole
+
+Release Date: August 20, 2006 [EBook #19085]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRELUDE TO ADVENTURE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Andrew Hodson
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note: Errors found: A name is sometimes spelt 'Med. Tetloe' and
+sometimes 'Med-Tetloe' & Cleopatre maybe wrong. So that just 7 bit text
+is used the accented & ligatured words are repeated here with numbers
+for codepages 437 & 850: Acute e 130 e: blase, chasmed, Cleopatre, elite
+& unperturbed i with 2 (or 3) dots 139 i: dais & dais ea ligature 145
+ae: mediaeval u with 2 dots 129 ue: Duerer's 'The Hound of Heaven' poem, The
+letter to father and separate 'All things betray Thee Who betrayest Me.'
+quote are in a smaller font.
+
+
+
+THE PRELUDE TO ADVENTURE
+
+BY HUGH WALPOLE AUTHOR OF "MR. PERRIN AND MR. TRAILL"
+
+
+MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED, ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
+
+_New Edition September_,1919
+
+TO MY FRIEND R. A. STREATFIELD
+
+
+
+     CONTENTS
+
+     CHAP.
+        I. LAST CHAPTER
+
+       II. BUNNING
+
+      III. THE BODY COMES TO TOWN
+
+       IV. MARGARET CRAVEN
+
+        V. STONE ALTARS
+
+       VI. THE WATCHERS
+
+      VII. TERROR
+
+     VIII. REVELATION OF BUNNING (I)
+
+       IX. REVELATION OF BUNNING (II)
+
+        X. CRAVEN
+
+       XI. FIFTH OF NOVEMBER
+
+      XII. LOVE TO THE "VALSE TRISTE"
+
+     XIII. MRS. CRAVEN
+
+      XIV. GOD
+
+       XV. PRELUDE TO A JOURNEY
+
+      XVI. OLVA AND MARGARET
+
+     XVII. FIRST CHAPTER
+
+
+
+        Up vistaed hopes I sped;
+        And shot, precipitated Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,
+     From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
+        But with unhurrying chase,
+        And unperturbed pace,
+     Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
+        They beat--and a Voice beat
+        More instant than the Feet--
+     All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.
+
+     The Hound of Heaven.
+
+     16 HALLAM STREET,
+       _October_ 11, 1911.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+LAST CHAPTER
+
+1
+
+"There _is_ a God after all." That was the immense conviction that
+faced him as he heard, slowly, softly, the leaves, the twigs, settle
+themselves after that first horrid crash which the clumsy body had made.
+
+Olva Dune stood for an instant straight and stiff, his arms heavily at
+his side, and the dank, misty wood slipped back once more into silence.
+There was about him now the most absolute stillness: some trees dripped
+in the mist; far above him, on the top of the hill, the little path
+showed darkly--below him, in the hollow, black masses of fern and weed
+lay heavily under the chill November air--at his feet there was the
+body.
+
+In that sudden after silence he had known beyond any question that might
+ever again arise, that there was now a God--God had watched him.
+
+With grave eyes, with hands that did not tremble, he surveyed and then,
+bending, touched the body. He knelt in the damp, heavy soil, tore open
+the waistcoat, the shirt; the flesh was yet warm to his touch--the
+heart was still. Carfax was dead.
+
+It had happened so instantly. First that great hulking figure in front
+of him, the sneering laugh, that last sentence, "Let her rot . . . my
+dear Dune, your chivalry does you credit." Then that black, blinding,
+surging rage and the blow that followed. He did not know what he had
+intended to do. It did not matter--only in the force that there had been
+in his arm there had been the accumulated hatred of years, hatred that
+dated from that first term at school thirteen years ago when he had
+known Carfax for the dirty hypocrite that he was. He could not stay now
+to think of the many things that had led to this climax. He only knew
+that as he raised himself again from the body there was with him no
+feeling of repentance, no suggestion of fear, only a grim satisfaction
+that he had struck so hard, and, above all, that lightning certainty
+that he had had of God.
+
+His brain was entirely alert. He did not doubt, as he stood there, that
+he would be caught and delivered and hanged. He, himself, would take no
+steps to prevent such a catastrophe. He would leave the body there as it
+was: to-night, to-morrow they would find it,--the rest would follow. He
+was, indeed, acutely interested in his own sensations. Why was it that
+he felt no fear? Where was the terror that followed, as he had so often
+heard, upon murder? Why was it that the dominant feeling in him should
+be that at last he had justified his existence? In that furious blow
+there had leapt within him the creature that he had always been--the
+creature subdued, restrained, but always there--there through all
+this civilized existence; the creature that his father was, that his
+grandfather, that all his ancestors, had been. He looked down. The
+hulking body that had been Carfax made a hollow in the wet and broken
+fern. The face was white, stupid, the cheeks hanging fat, horrible, the
+eyes staring. One leg was twisted beneath the body. Still in the air
+there seemed to linger that startled little cry--"Oh!"--surprise,
+wonder--and then fading miserably into nothing as the great body fell.
+
+Such a huge hulking brute; now so sordid and useless, looking at last,
+after all these years, the thing that it ought always to have looked.
+Some money had rolled from the pocket and lay shining amongst the fern.
+A gold ring glittered on the white finger, seeming in the heart of that
+silence the only living note.
+
+Then Olva remembered his dog--where was he? He turned and saw the fox
+terrier down on all fours amongst the fern, motionless, his tongue out,
+his eyes gazing with animal inquiry at his master. The dog was waiting
+for the order to continue the walk. He seemed, in his passivity, merely
+to be resting, a little exhausted perhaps by the heavy closeness of the
+day, too indolent to nose amongst the leaves for possible adventure:
+Olva looked at him. The dog caught the look and beat the grass with his
+tail, soft, friendly taps to show that he only waited for orders. Then
+still idly, still with that air of gentle amusement, the dog gazed at
+the thing in the grass. He rose slowly and very delicately advanced a
+few steps: for an instant some fear seemed to strike his heart for he
+stopped suddenly and gazed into his master's face for reassurance. What
+he saw there comforted him. Again he wagged his tail placidly and half
+closed his eyes in sleepy indifference.
+
+Then Olva, without another backward glance, left the hollow, crashed
+through the fern up the hill and struck the little brown path. Bunker,
+the dog, pattered patiently behind him.
+
+
+2
+
+Olva Dune was twenty-three years of age. He was of Spanish descent,
+and it was only within the last two generations that English blood had
+mingled with the Dune stock. He was of no great height, slim and dark.
+His hair was black, his complexion sallow, and on his upper lip he wore
+a small dark moustache. His ears were small, his mouth thin, his chin
+sharply pointed, but his eyes, large, dark brown, were his best feature.
+They were eyes that looked as though they held in their depths the
+possibility of tenderness. He walked as an athlete, there was no spare
+flesh about him anywhere, and in his carriage there was a dignity that
+had in it pride of birth, complete self-possession, and above all,
+contempt for his fellow-creatures.
+
+He despised all the world save only his father. He had gone through
+his school-life and was now passing through his college-life as a man
+travels through a country that has for him no interest and no worth but
+that may lead, once it has been traversed, to something of importance
+and adventure. He was now at the beginning of his second year at
+Cambridge and was regarded by every one with distrust, admiration,
+excitement. His was one of the more interesting personalities at that
+time in residence at Saul's.
+
+He had come with a historical scholarship and a great reputation as a
+Three-quarter from Rugby. He was considered to be a certain First Class
+and a certain Rugby Blue; he, lazily and indifferently during the course
+of his first term, discouraged both these anticipations. He attended
+no lectures, received a Third Class in his May examinations, and was
+deprived of his scholarship at the end of his first year. He played
+brilliantly in the Freshmen's Rugby match, but so indolently in the
+first University match of the season that he was not invited again. Had
+he played merely badly he would have been given a second trial, but
+his superior insolence was considered insulting. He never played in
+any College matches nor did he trouble to watch any of their glorious
+conflicts. Once and again he produced an Essay for his Tutor that
+astonished that gentleman very considerably, but when called before the
+Dean for neglecting to attend lectures explained that he was studying
+the Later Roman Empire and could not possibly attend to more than one
+thing at a time.
+
+He was perfectly friendly to every one, and it was curious that, with
+his air of contempt for the world in general, he had made no enemies. He
+wondered at that himself, on occasions; he had always been supposed, for
+instance, to be very good friends with Carfax. He had, of course, always
+hated Carfax--and now Carfax was dead.
+
+The little crooked path soon left the dark wood and merged into the long
+white Cambridge road. The flat country was veiled in mist, only, like
+a lantern above a stone wall, the sun was red over the lower veils of
+white that rose from the sodden fields. Some trees started like spies
+along the road. Overhead, where the mists were faint, the sky showed the
+faintest of pale blue. The long road rang under Olva's step--it would be
+a frosty night.
+
+When the little wood was now a black ball in the mist Olva was suddenly
+sick. He leant against one of the dark mysterious trees and was
+wretchedly, horribly ill. Slowly, then, the colour came back to his
+cheeks, his hands were once more steady, he could see again clearly. He
+addressed the strange world about him, the long flat fields, the hard
+white road, the orange sun. "That is the last time," he said aloud, "the
+last weakness."
+
+He definitely braced himself to face life. There would not be much of
+it--to-morrow he would be arrested: meanwhile there should be no more of
+these illusions. There was, for instance, the illusion that the body was
+following him, bounding grotesquely along the hard road. He knew that
+again and again he turned his head to see whether anything were there,
+and the further the little wood was left behind the nearer did the body
+seem to be. He must not allow himself to think these things. Carfax was
+dead--Carfax was dead--Carfax was dead. It was a good thing that Carfax
+was dead. He had saved, he hoped, Rose Midgett--that at any rate he had
+done; it was a good thing for Rose Midgett that he had killed Carfax.
+He had, incidentally, no interest on his own account in Rose Midgett--he
+scarcely knew her by sight--but it was pleasant to think that she would
+be no longer worried. . . .
+
+Then there was that question about God. Now the river appeared, darkly,
+dimly below the road, the reeds rising spire-like towards the faint blue
+sky. That question about God--Olva had never believed in any kind of a
+God. His father had defied God and the Devil time and again and had been
+none the worse for it. And yet--here and there about the world people
+lived and had their being to whom this question of God was a vital
+question; people like Bunning and his crowd--mad, the whole lot of
+them. Nevertheless there was something there that had great power. That
+had, until to-day, been Olva's attitude, an amused superior curiosity.
+
+Now it was a larger question. There had been that moment after Carfax
+had fallen, a moment of intense silence, and in that moment something
+had spoken to Olva. It is a fact as sure as concrete, as though he
+himself could remember words and gesture. There had been Something
+there. . . .
+
+Brushing this for an instant aside, he faced next the question of his
+arrest. There was no one, save his father, for whom he need think. He
+would send his father word saying--"I have killed a beast--fairly--in
+the open"--that would be all.
+
+He would not be hanged--poison should see to that. Dunes had murdered,
+raped, tortured--never yet had they died on the gallows.
+
+And now, for the first time, the suspicion crossed his mind that
+perhaps, after all, he might escape--escape, at any rate, that order of
+punishment. Here on this desolate road, he had met no living soul; the
+mists encompassed him and they had now swallowed the dripping wood and
+all that it contained. It had always been supposed that he was good
+friends with Carfax, as good friends as he allowed himself to be with
+any one. No one had known in which direction he would take his walk;
+he had come upon Carfax entirely by chance. It might quite naturally be
+supposed that some tramp had attempted robbery. To the world at large
+Olva could have had no possible motive. But, for the moment, these
+thoughts were dismissed. It seemed to him just now immaterial whether he
+lived or died. Life had not hitherto been so wonderful a discovery
+that the making of it had been entirely worth while. He had no tenor of
+disgrace; his father was his only court of appeal, and that old rocky
+sinner, sitting alone with his proud spirit and his grey hairs, in his
+northern fastness, hating and despising the world, would himself slay,
+had he the opportunity, as many men of the Carfax kind as he could find.
+He had no terror of pain--he did not know what that kind of fear was.
+The Dunes had always faced Death.
+
+But he began, dimly, now to perceive that there were larger, crueller
+issues before him than these material punishments. He had known since
+he was a tiny child a picture by some Spanish painter, whose name he had
+forgotten, that had always hung on the wall of the passage opposite his
+bedroom. It was a large engraving in sharply contrasted black and white,
+of a knight who rode through mists along a climbing road up into
+the heart of towering hills. The mountains bad an active life in the
+picture; they seemed to crowd forward eager to swallow him. Beside the
+spectre horse that he rode there was no other life. The knight's face,
+white beneath his black helmet, was tired and worn. About him was the
+terror of loneliness.
+
+From his earliest years this idea of loneliness had pleasantly seized
+upon Olva's mind. His father had always impressed upon him that the
+Dunes had ever been lonely--lonely in a world that was contemptible. He
+had always until now accepted this idea and found it confirmed on every
+side. His six years at Rugby had encouraged him--he had despised, with
+his tolerant smile, boys and masters alike; all insincere, all weak, all
+to be used, if he wanted them, as he chose to use them. He had thought
+often of the lonely knight--that indeed should be his attitude to the
+world.
+
+But now, suddenly, as the scattered Cambridge houses with their dull
+yellow lights began to creep stealthily through the mist, upon the road,
+he knew for the first time that loneliness could be terrible. He
+was hurrying now, although he had not formerly been conscious of it,
+hurrying into the lights and comforts and noise of the town. There might
+only be for him now a night and day of freedom, but, during that time,
+he must not, he must not be alone. The patter of Bunker's feet beside
+him pleased him. Bunker was now a fact of great importance to him.
+
+And now he could see further. He could see that he must always now, from
+the consciousness of the thing that he had done, he alone. The actual
+moment of striking his blow had put an impassable gulf between his soul
+and all the world. Bodies might touch, hands might be grasped,
+voices ring together, always now his soul must be alone. Only, that
+Something--of whose Presence he had been, in that instant, aware--could
+keep his company. They two . . . they two. . . .
+
+The suburbs of Cambridge had closed about him. Those dreary little
+streets, empty as it seemed of all life, facing him sullenly with their
+sodden little yellow lamps, shivering, grumbling, he could fancy, in
+the chill of that November evening, eyed him with suspicion. He walked
+through them now, with his shoulders back, his head up. He could fancy
+how, to-morrow, their dull placidity would be wrung by the discovery of
+the crime. The little wood would fling its secret into the eager lap
+of these decrepit witches; they would crowd to their doors, chatter it,
+shout it, pull it to pieces. "Body of an Undergraduate . . . Body of an
+Undergraduate. . . ."
+
+He turned out of their cold silence over the bridge that spanned the
+river, up the path that crossed the common into the heart of the town,
+Here, at once, he was in the hubbub. The little streets were mediaeval
+in their narrow space, in their cobbles, in the old black, fantastic
+walls that hung above them. Beauty, too, on this November evening, shone
+through the misty lamplight. Beauty in the dark purple of the evening
+sky, beauty in the sudden vista of grey courts with lighted windows,
+like eyes, seen through stone gateways. Beauty in the sudden golden
+shadows of some corner shop glittering through the mist; beauty in the
+overshadowing of the many towers that were like grey clouds in mid-air.
+
+The little streets chattered with people--undergraduates in Norfolk
+jackets, grey flannel trousers short enough to show the brightest
+of socks, walked arm in arm--voices rang out--men called across the
+streets--hansoms rattled like little whirlwinds along the cobbles---many
+bells were ringing--dark bodies, leaning from windows, gave uncouth
+cries . . . over it all the mellow lamplight.
+
+Into this happy confusion Olva Dune plunged. He shook off from him, as
+a dog shakes water from his back, the memory of that white mist-haunted
+road. Once he deliberately faced the moment when he had been sick--faced
+it, heard once again the dull, lumbering sound that the body had made as
+it bundled along the road, and then put it from him altogether. Now for
+battle . . . his dark eyes challenged this shifting cloud of life.
+
+He went round to the stable where Bunker was housed, chattered with the
+blue-chinned ostler, and then, for a moment, was alone with the dog. How
+much had Bunker seen? How much had he understood? Was it fancy, or did
+the dog crouch, the tiniest impulse, away from him as he bent to pat
+him? Bunker was tired; he relapsed on to his haunches, wagged his
+tail, grinned, but in his eyes there seemed, although the lamplight was
+deceptive, to be the faintest shadow of an apprehension.
+
+"Good old dog, good old Bunker." Bunker wagged his tail, but the tiniest
+shiver passed, like a thought, through his body.
+
+Olva left him.
+
+As he passed through the streets he met men whom he knew. They nodded or
+flung a greeting. How strange to think that to-morrow night they would
+be speaking of him in low, grave voices as one who was already dead. "I
+knew the fellow quite well, strange, reserved man--nobody really knew
+him. With these foreigners, you know . . ."
+
+Oh! he could hear them!
+
+He passed through the gates of Saul's. The porter touched his hat. The
+great Centre Court was shrouded in mist, and out of the white veil the
+grey buildings rose, gently, on every side. There were lights now in
+the windows; the Chapel bell was ringing, hushed and dimmed by the heavy
+air. Boots rang sharply along the stone corridors. Olva crossed the
+court towards his room.
+
+Suddenly, from the very heart of the mist, sharply, above the sound of
+the Chapel bell, a voice called--
+
+"Carfax! Carfax!"
+
+Olva stayed: for an instant the blood ran from his body, his knees
+quivered, his face was as white as the mist. Then he braced himself--he
+knew the voice.
+
+"Hullo, Craven, is that you?"
+
+"Who's that? . . . Can't see in this mist."
+
+"Dune."
+
+"Hullo, Dune. I say, do you know what's happened to Carfax?"
+
+"Happened? No--why?"
+
+"Well, I can't find him anywhere. I wanted to get him for Bridge. He
+ought to be back by now."
+
+"Back? Where's he been?"
+
+"Going over to see some aunt or other at Grantchester--ought to be back
+by now."
+
+An aunt?--No, Rose Midgett.
+
+"No--I've no idea--haven't seen him since yesterday."
+
+"Been out for a walk?"
+
+"Yes, just took my dog for a bit."
+
+"See you in Hall?"
+
+"Right--o!"
+
+The voice began again calling under the windows--"Carfax! Carfax!"
+
+Olva climbed the stairs to his rooms.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+BUNNING
+
+1
+
+He went into Hall. He sat amongst the particular group of his own year
+who were considered the _elite_. There was Cardillac there, brilliant,
+flashing Cardillac. There was Bobby Galleon, fat, good-natured, sleepy,
+intelligent in an odd bovine way. There was Craven, young, ardent,
+hail-fellow-well-met. There was Lawrence, burly back for the University
+in Rugby, unintelligent, kind and good-tempered unless he were drunk.
+
+There were others. They all sat in their glory, noisily happy. Somewhere
+in the distance on a raised dais were the Dons gravely pompous. Every
+now and again word was brought that the gentlemen were making too much
+noise. The Master might be observed drinking elaborately, ceremoniously
+with some guest. Madden, the Service Tutor, flung his shrill treble
+voice above the general hubbub--
+
+"But, my dear Ross, if you had only observed---"
+
+"Where is Carfax?" came suddenly from Lawrence. He asked Craven, who
+was, of course, the devoted friend of Carfax. Craven had large brown
+eyes, a charming smile, a prominent chin, rather fat routed cheeks and
+short brown hair that curled a little. He gave the impression of eager
+good-temper and friendliness. To-night he looked worried. "I don't
+know," he said, "I can't understand it. He said this morning that he'd
+be here to-night and make up a four at Bridge. He went off to see an
+aunt or some one at Grantchester!"
+
+"Perhaps," said Bobby Galleon gravely, "he had an exeat and has gone up
+to town."
+
+"But he'd have said something--sure. And the porter hasn't seen him. He
+would have been certain to know."
+
+Olva was never expected to talk much. His reserve was indeed rather
+popular. The entirely normal and ordinary men around him appreciated
+this mystery. "Rum fellow, Dune . . . nobody knows him." His high dark
+colour, his dignity, his courtesy had about it something distinguished
+and romantic. "He'll do something wonderful one day, _you_ bet. Why, if
+he only chose to play up at footer there's nothing he couldn't do."
+
+Even the brilliant Cardillac, thin, dark, handsome leader of fashion and
+society, admitted the charm.
+
+Now, however, Olva, looking up, quietly said--
+
+"I expect his aunt's kept him to dinner. _He'll_ turn up."
+
+But of course he wouldn't turn up. He was lying in the heart of that
+crushed, dripping fern with his leg doubled under him. It wasn't often
+that one killed a man with one blow; the signet ring that he wore on the
+little finger of his right hand--a Dune ring of great antiquity--must
+have had something to do with it.
+
+He turned it round thoughtfully on his finger. Robert, an old, old
+trembling waiter, said in a shaking voice--
+
+"There's salmi of wild game, sir--roast beef."
+
+"Beef, please," Olva said quietly.
+
+He was considering now that all these men would to-morrow night have
+only one thought, one idea. They would remember everything, the very
+slightest thing that he had done. They would discuss it all from every
+possible point of view.
+
+"I always knew he'd do something. . . ." He suddenly knew quite sharply,
+as though a voice had spoken to him, that he could not endure this
+any longer. There was gathering upon him the conviction that in a few
+minutes, rising from his place, he would cry out to the hall--"I,
+Olva Dune, this afternoon, killed Carfax. You will find his body in the
+wood." He repeated the words to himself under his breath. "You will find
+his body in the wood. . . ." "You will find . . ."
+
+He finished his beef very quietly and then got up.
+
+Craven appealed to him. "I say, Dune, do come and make a four--my rooms,
+half-past eight--Lawrence and Galleon are the other two."
+
+Olva looked down at him with his grave, rather melancholy smile.
+
+"Afraid I can't to-night, Craven; must work."
+
+"Don't overdo it," Cardillac said.
+
+The eyes of the two men met. Olva knew that Cardillac--"Cards" as he was
+to his friends, liked him; he himself did not hate Cardillac. He was the
+only man in the College for whom he had respect. They were both of them
+demanding the same thing from the world. They both of them despised
+their fellow-creatures.
+
+Olva, climbing the stairs to his room, stood for a moment in the dark,
+before he turned on the lights. He spoke aloud in a whisper, as though
+some one were with him in the room.
+
+"This won't do," he said. "This simply won't do. Your nerves are going.
+You've only got a few hours of it. Hold on--Think of the beast that he
+was. Think of the beast that he was."
+
+He walked slowly back to the door and turned on the electric lights. He
+did not sport his oak--if people came to see him he would rather like
+it: in some odd way it would be more satisfactory than that he should go
+to see them--but people did not often come to see him.
+
+He laid out his books on the table and sat down. He had grown fond of
+this room. The walls were distempered white. The ceiling was old and
+black with age. There was a deep red-tiled fireplace. One wall had low
+brown bookshelves. There were two pictures: one an Around reprint of
+Matsys' "Portrait of Aegidius"--that wise, kind, tender face; the other
+an admirable photogravure of Durer's "Selbstbildnis." The books were
+mainly to do with his favourite historical period--the Later Roman
+Empire. There was some poetry--an edition of Browning, Swinburne's
+_Poems and Ballads_, Ernest Dowson, Rossetti, Francis Thompson. There
+was an edition of Hazlitt, a set of the _Spectator_, one or two novels,
+_Henry Lessingham_ and _The Roads_ by Galleon, _To Paradise_ by Lester,
+Meredith's _One of Our Conquerors_ and _Diana of the Crossways, The
+Ambassadors_ and _Awkward Age_ of Henry James.
+
+On the mantelpiece above the fireplace there were three deep blue bowls,
+the only ornaments in the room. Beyond the little diamond-paned windows,
+beyond the dark mysteries of the Fellows' garden, a golden mist rose
+from the lamps of the street, there were stars in the sky.
+
+He faced his books. For a quarter of an hour he saw before him the
+hanging, baggy cheeks, the white, staring eyes, the glittering ring on
+the weak finger. His hands began to tremble. . . .
+
+There was a timid knock on the door, and he was instantly sure that the
+body had been found, and that they had come to arrest him. He stood
+back from the door with his hand pressing on the table. It was almost a
+relief to him that the summons had come so soon--it would presently all
+be over.
+
+"Come in," he said, and gave one look at the golden mist, at the stars,
+at the tender face of Aegidius.
+
+The door was opened slowly with fumbling hands, and there stood there
+a large, fat, clumsy, shapeless creature, with a white face, a hooked
+nose, an open, foolish mouth.
+
+The reaction was hysterical. To expect a summons to death and public
+shame, to find--Bunning. Bunning--that soft, blithering, emotional,
+religious, middle-class maniac--Bunning! "Soft-faced" Bunning, as he was
+called, was the man of Olva's year in whom the world at large found most
+entertainment. The son of some country clergyman, kicked and battered
+through the slow, dreary years at some small Public School, he had come
+up to Saul's with an intense, burning desire to make a mark. He was
+stupid, useless at games, having only somewhere behind his fat ugly body
+a longing to be connected with some cause, some movement, some person of
+whom he might make a hero.
+
+He had, of course, within the first fortnight of his arrival, plunged
+himself into dire disgrace. He had asked Lawrence, coming like a young
+god from Marlborough, in to coffee; they had made him drunk and laughed
+at his hysterical tears: in his desire for popularity he had held a
+gathering in his room, with the original intention of coffee, cakes and
+gentle conversation; the evening had ended with the arrival of all his
+furniture and personal effects upon the grass of the court below his
+windows.
+
+He had been despised by the Dons, buffeted and derided by his fellow
+undergraduates. Especially had Carfax and Cardillac made his life a
+burden to him, and whenever it seemed that there was nothing especial
+to do, the cry arose, "Let's go and rag Bunning," and five minutes later
+that fat body would tremble at the sound of many men climbing the wooden
+stairs, at the loud banging on his wooden door, at the cry, "Hullo,
+Bunning--we've come for some coffee."
+
+Then, towards the end of the first year, the Cambridge Christian Union
+flung out its net and caught him. His attempt at personal popularity had
+failed here as thoroughly as it had failed at school--now for his soul.
+He found that the gentlemen of his college who were members of the
+Christian Union were eager for his company. They did not laugh at his
+conversation nor mock his proffered hospitalities. They talked to him,
+persuaded him that his soul was in jeopardy, and carried him off during
+part of the Long Vacation to the Norfolk Broads, where prayer-meetings,
+collisions with other sea-faring craft, and tinned meats were the order
+of the day.
+
+Olva had watched him with that amused incredulity that he so frequently
+bestowed upon his fellow-creatures. How was this kind of animal, with
+its cowardice, its stupidity, its ugliness, its uselessness, possible?
+He had never spoken to Bunning, although he had once received a
+note from him asking him to coffee--a piece of very considerable
+impertinence. He had never assisted Carfax and Cards in their raiding
+expeditions, but that was only because he considered such things
+tiresome and childish.
+
+And now, behold, there in his doorway--incredible vision!--was the
+creature--at this moment of--all others!
+
+"Come in," said Olva again.
+
+Bunning brought his large quivering body into the room and stood there,
+turning his cap round and round in his hands.
+
+"Oh, I say---" and there he stopped.
+
+"Won't you sit down?"
+
+"No--thanks--I----"
+
+"In what way can I be of use to you?"
+
+"Oh! I say---"
+
+Senseless giggles, and then Bunning's mouth opened and remained open.
+His eyes stared at Dune.
+
+"Well, what is it?"
+
+"Oh--my word--you know---"
+
+"Look here," said Olva quietly, "if you don't get on and tell me what
+you want I shall do you some bodily damage. I've got work to do. Another
+time, perhaps, when I am less busy----"
+
+Bunning was nearly in tears. "Oh, yes, I know--it's most awful
+cheek--I----"
+
+There was a desperate silence and then he plunged out with--"Well,
+you know, I--that is--we-I--sort of wondered whether, you know, you'd
+care--not if you're awfully busy of course--but whether you'd care
+to come and hear Med. Tetloe preach to-night. I know it's most awful
+cheek----" He was nearly in tears.
+
+Olva kept an amazed silence. Life! What an amusing thing!--that he, with
+his foot on the edge of disaster, death, should be invited by Bunning to
+a revival meeting. He understood it, of course. Bunning had been sent,
+as an ardent missionary is sent into the heart of West Africa, to invite
+Olva to consider his soul. He was expecting, poor creature, to be kicked
+violently down the twisting wooden stairs. On another occasion he would
+be sent to Lawrence or Cardillac, and then his expectations would be
+most certainly fulfilled. But it was for the cause--at least these
+sinners should be given the opportunity of considering their souls. If
+they refused to consider them, they must not complain if they find the
+next world but little to their fancy.
+
+No one had ever attacked Olva before on this subject. His reserve had
+been more alarming to the Soul Hunters than the coarse violence of a
+Cardillac or a Carfax. And now Bunning--Bunning of all people in this
+ridiculous world--had ventured. Well, there was pluck necessary for
+that. Bunning, the coward, had done a braver thing than many more
+stalwart men would have cared to do. There was bravery there!
+
+Moreover, why should not Olva go? He could not sit alone in his room,
+his nerves would soon be too many for him. What did it matter? His last
+evening of freedom should be spent as no other evening of his life had
+been spent. . . . Moreover, might there not be something behind this
+business? Might he not, perhaps, be shown to-night some clue to the
+presence of that Power that had spoken to him in the wood? Through all
+the tangled confusion of his thoughts, through the fear and courage
+there ran this note-where was God? . . . God the only person to Whom he
+now could speak, because God knew.
+
+Might not this idiot of a Bunning have been shown the way to the
+mystery?
+
+"Yes," said Olva, smiling. "I'll come, if you won't mind sitting down
+and smoking for a quarter of an hour, while I finish this--have a drink,
+will you?"
+
+Bunning's consternation at Olva's acceptance was amusing. He dropped his
+cap, stopped to pick it up, gasped. That Dune should really come!
+
+"You'll come?" he spluttered out. Never in his wildest imaginings had he
+fancied such a thing. Dune, the most secret, reserved, mysterious man in
+the college--Dune, whose sarcastic smile was considered more terrifying
+than Lawrence's mailed fist--Dune, towards whom in the back of his mind
+there had been paid that reverence that belongs only to those who are of
+another world.
+
+Never, in anything that had happened to him, had Bunning been so
+terrified as he had been by this visit to Dune. Watson Morley, the
+Christian Union man, had insisted that it was his duty and therefore
+he had come, but it had taken him ten minutes of agony to climb those
+stairs. And now Dune had accepted. . . .
+
+The colour flooded his cheeks and faded again. He sat down clumsily in
+a chair, felt for a pipe that he smoked unwillingly because it was the
+manly thing to do, spurted some Apollinaris into a glass and over
+the tablecloth, struck many matches vainly, dropped tobacco on to the
+carpet. His heart was beating like a hammer!
+
+How men would stare when they saw him with Dune. In his heart was the
+uneasy knowledge that had Dune proposed staying there in his rooms
+and talking instead of going to Little St. Agnes and listening to the
+Reverend Med. Tetloe, he would have stayed. This was not right, it was
+not Christian. The world gaped below Bunning's heavy feet.
+
+At last Dune said: "I'm ready, let's go." They went out.
+
+
+2
+
+Little St. Agnes was apparently so named because it was the largest
+church in Cambridge. It was of no ancient date, but it was grim, grey,
+dark--admirably suited to an occasion like the present. Under the high
+roof, lost in a grey cloud, resolving themselves into rows of white,
+intense faces, sat hundreds of undergraduates.
+
+They were seated on uncomfortable, unstable chairs, and the noise of
+their uneasy movements sent squeaks up and down the building as though
+it had been a barn filled with terrified rats.
+
+Far in the distance, perched on a high pulpit, was a little white
+figure--an old gaunt man with a bony hand and a grey beard. Behind him
+again there was darkness. Only, in all the vast place, the white body
+and rows of white faces raised to it.
+
+Olva and Bunning found seats in a corner. A slight soft voice said, with
+the mysterious importance of one about to deliver an immense secret,
+"You will look in the Mission Books, Hymn 330. 'Oh! for the arms of
+Jesus.' I want you to think for a moment of the meaning of the words
+before you sing."
+
+There followed the rustling of many pages and then a heavy, emotional
+silence. Olva read the words and found them very sentimental, very bad
+verse and rather unpleasantly fall of blood and pain. Every one stood;
+the chairs creaked from one end of the building to the other, an immense
+volume of sound rose to the roof.
+
+Olva felt that the entire church was seized with emotion. He saw that
+Bunning's hand was trembling, he knew that many eyes were filled with
+tears. For himself, he understood at once that that distant figure in
+white was here to make a dramatic appeal--dramatic as certainly as the
+appeal that a famous actor might make in London. That was his job--
+he was out for it---and anything in the way of silence or noise, of
+darkness or light, that could add to the effect would be utilized. Olva
+knew also that nine-tenths of the undergraduates were present there for
+the same purpose. They wished to have their emotions played upon; they
+wished also to be reassured about life; they wished to confuse this
+dramatic emotion with a sincere desire for salvation. They wished, it is
+true, to be good, but they wished, a great deal more, to be dramatically
+stirred.
+
+Olva was reminded of the tensity of the atmosphere at a bull-fight that
+he had once seen in Madrid. Here again was the same intensity. . . .
+
+He saw, therefore, in this first singing of the hymn, that this place,
+this appeal, would be of no use in his own particular need. This
+deliberate evoking of dramatic effect had nothing to do with that silent
+consciousness of God. This place, this appeal, was fantastic, childish,
+beside that event that had that afternoon sent Carfax into space. Let
+these men hurry to the wood, let them find the sodden body, let them
+face then the reality of Life. . . .
+
+Again, as before in Hall, he was tempted to rise and cry out: "I have
+killed Carfax. I have killed Carfax. What of all your theories now?"
+That trembling ass, Bunning, singing now at the top of his voice,
+shaking with the fervour of it, let him know that he had brought a
+murderer to the sacred gathering--again Olva had to concentrate all his
+mind, his force, his power upon the conquest of his nerves. For a moment
+it seemed as though he would lose all control; he stood, his knees
+quivering beneath him--then strength came back to him.
+
+After the hymn the address. There was tense, rapt silence. The little
+voice went on, soft, low, sweet, pleading, very clear. There must be
+many men who had not yet found God. There were those, perhaps, in the
+Church tonight who had not even thought about God. There were those
+again who, maybe, had some crime on their conscience and did not know
+how to get rid of it. Would they not come to Christ and ask His help?
+
+Stories were told. Story of the young man who cursed his mother, broke
+his leg, and arrived home just too late to see her alive. Story of the
+friend who died to save another friend, and how many souls were saved
+by this self-sacrifice. Story of the Undergraduate who gambled and drank
+and was converted by a barmaid and eventually became a Bishop.
+
+All these examples of God's guidance. Then, for an instant, there is a
+great silence. The emotion is now beating in waves against the wall. The
+faces are whiter now, hands are clenched, lips bitten. Suddenly there
+leaps upon them all that gentle voice, now a trumpet. "Who is for the
+Lord? Who is for the Lord?"
+
+Then gently again,--"Let us pray in silence for a few minutes." . . .
+A great creaking of chairs, more intense silence. At last the voice
+again--"Will those who are sure that they are saved stand up?" Dead
+silence--no one moves. "Will those who wish to be saved stand up?" With
+one movement every one--save only Olva, dark in his corner--stands up.
+Bunning's eyes are flaming, his body is trembling from head to foot.
+
+"Christ is amongst you! Christ is in the midst of you!"
+
+Suddenly, somewhere amongst the shadows a voice breaks out--"Oh! my God!
+Oh! my God!" Some one is crying--some one else is crying. All about the
+building men are falling on to their knees. Bunning has crashed on to
+his--his face buried in his hands.
+
+The little gentle voice again--"I shall be delighted to speak to any of
+those whose consciences are burdened. If any who wish to see me would
+wait. . . ."
+
+The souls are caught for God.
+
+Prayers followed, another hymn. Bunning with red eyes has contemplated
+his sins and is in a glow of excited repentance. It is over.
+
+As Olva rose to leave the building he knew that this was not the path
+for which he was searching. Not here was that terrible Presence. . . .
+The men poured in a black crowd out into the night. As Olva stepped into
+the darkness he knew that the terror was only now beginning for him.
+Standing there now with no sorrow, remorse, repentance, nevertheless
+he knew that all night, alone in his room, he would be fighting with
+devils. . . .
+
+Bunning, nervously, stammered--"If you don't mind--I think I'm going
+round for a minute."
+
+Olva nodded good-night. As he went on his way to Saul's, grimly, it
+seemed humorous that "soft-faced" Bunning should be going to confess his
+thin, miserable little sins.
+
+For him, Olva Dune, only a dreadful silence. . . .
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE BODY COMES TO TOWN
+
+1
+
+And after all he slept, slept dreamlessly. He woke to the comfortable
+accustomed voices of Mrs. Ridge, his bedmaker, and Miss Annett, her
+assistant. It was a cold frosty morning; the sky showed through the
+window a cloudless blue.
+
+He could hear the deep base voice of Mrs. Ridge in her favourite phrase:
+"Well, I _don't_ think, Miss Annett. You won't get over me," and Miss
+Annett's mildly submissive, "I should think _not_ indeed, Mrs. Ridge."
+
+Lying back in bed he surveyed with a mild wonder the fact that he had
+thus, easily, slept. He felt, moreover, that that body had already, in
+the division of to-day from yesterday, lost much of its haunting power.
+In the clean freshness of the day, in the comfort of the casual
+voices of the two women in the other room, in the smell of the coffee,
+yesterday's melodrama seemed incredible. It had never happened; soon he
+would see from his window Carfax's hulking body cross the court. No,
+it was real enough, only it did not concern him. He watched it, as a
+spectator, indifferent, callous. There _was_ a change in his life, but
+it was a change of another kind. In the strange consciousness that he
+now had of some vast and vital Presence, the temporal fact of the thing
+that he had done lost all importance. There was something that he had
+got to find, to discover. If--and the possibility seemed large now in
+the air of this brilliant morning--he were, after all, to escape,
+he would not rest until he had made his discovery. Some new life was
+stirring within him. He wanted now to fling himself amongst men; he
+would play football, he would take his place in the college, he would
+test everything--leave no stone unturned. No longer a cynical observer,
+he would be an adventurer . . . if they would let him alone.
+
+He got out of bed, stripped, and stood over his bath. The cold air beat
+upon his skin; he rejoiced in the sense of his fitness, in the movement
+of his muscles, in the splendid condition of his body. If this were to
+be the last day of his freedom, it should at any rate be a splendid day.
+
+He had his bath, flung on a shirt and trousers and went into his
+sitting-room, bright now with the morning sun, so that the blue bowls
+and the red tiles shone, and even the dark face of Aegidius was lighted
+with the gleam.
+
+Mrs. Ridge was short and stout, with white hair, a black bonnet, and the
+deepest of voices. Her eagerness to deliver herself of all the things
+that she wanted to say prevented full-stops and commas from being of any
+use to her. Miss Annett was admirably suited as a companion, being long,
+thin and silent, and intended by nature to be subservient to the more
+masterful of her sex. With any man she was able easily to hold her own;
+with Mrs. Ridge she was bending, bowed, humility.
+
+Mrs. Ridge grinned like a dog at the appearance of Olva. "Good mornin',
+sir, and a nice frosty cold sort o' day it is with Miss Annett just
+breakin' one of your cups, sir, 'er 'ands bein' that cold and a cup
+bein' an easy thing to slip out of the 'and as you must admit yourself,
+sir. Pore Miss Annett is _that_ distressed."
+
+Miss Annett did indeed look downcast. "I can't think---" she began.
+
+"It's quite all right, Miss Annett," said Olva. "I think it's wonderful
+that you break the things as seldom as you do. The china was of no kind
+of value."
+
+It was known in the college that Mr. Dune was the only gentleman of
+whom Mrs. Ridge could be said to be afraid; she was proud of him and
+frightened of him. She said to Miss Annett, when that lady made her
+first appearance--
+
+"And I can tell _you_, Miss Annett, that you need never 'ave no fear of
+bein' introjuced to Royalty one of these days after bein' with that Mr.
+Dune, because it puts you in practice, I can tell you, and a nice spoken
+gentleman 'e is and _quiet_--never does a thing 'e shouldn't, but wicked
+under it all I'll be bound. 'E's no chicken, you take it from me. Born
+yesterday? I _don't_ think. . . ."
+
+The women faded away, and he was left to himself. After breakfast he
+thought that he would write to his father and give him an account of
+the thing that he had done; if he escaped suspicion he would tear it up.
+Also he was determined on two things: one was that if he were accused
+of the crime, he would at once admit everything; the other was that he
+would do his utmost, until he was accused, to lead his life exactly as
+though he were in no way concerned. He had now an odd assurance that it
+was not by his public condemnation that he was intended to work out the
+results of his act. Why was he so assured of that? What was it that was
+now so strangely moving him? He faced the world, armed, resolved. It
+seemed to him that it was important for him, now, to live. This was
+the first moment of his life that existence had appeared to be of any
+moment. He wanted time to continue his search.
+
+He wrote to his father---
+
+ MY DEAR FATHER,---
+
+   I have just been arrested on the charge of murdering an undergraduate
+here called Carfax. It is quite true that I killed him. We met
+yesterday, in the country, quarrelled, and I struck him, hitting him on
+the chin. He fell instantly, breaking his neck. He was muck of the worst
+kind. I had known him at Rugby; he was always a beast of the lowest
+order. He was ruining a fellow here, taking his money, making him drink,
+doing for him; also ruining a girl in a tobacconist's shop. All this was
+no business of mine, but we had always loathed one another. I think when
+I hit him I wanted to kill him. I am not, in any way, sorry, except that
+suddenly I do not want to die. You are the only person in the world for
+whom I care; you will understand. I have not disgraced the name; it was
+killing a rat. I think that you had better not come to see me. I face it
+better alone. We have gone along well together, you and I. I send you my
+love. Good-bye, OLVA.
+
+As he finished it, he wondered, Would this be sent? Would they come for
+him? Perhaps, at this moment, they had found the body. He put the letter
+carefully in the pocket of his shirt. Then, suddenly, he was confronted
+with the risk. Suppose that he were to be taken ill, to faint, to forget
+the thing. . . . No, the letter must wait. They would allow him to
+write, if the time came.
+
+He took the letter, flung it into the fire, watched it burn. He felt as
+though, in the writing of it, he had communicated with his father. The
+old man would understand.
+
+
+2
+
+About eleven o'clock Craven came to see him. Craven's father had been
+a Fellow of Trinity and Professor of Chinese to the University. He had
+died some five years ago and now the widow and young Craven's sister
+lived in Cambridge. Craven had tried, during his first term, to make
+a friend of Olva, but his happy, eager attitude to the whole world
+had seemed crude and even priggish to Olva's reserve, and all Craven's
+overtures had been refused, quietly, kindly, but firmly. Craven had not
+resented the repulse; it was not his habit to resent anything, and as
+the year had passed, Olva had realized that Craven's impetuous desire
+for the friendship of the world was something in him perfectly natural
+and unforced. Olva had discovered also that Craven's devotion to his
+mother and sister was the boy's leading motive in life. Olva had only
+seen the girl, Margaret, once; she had been finishing her education in
+Dresden, and he remembered her as dark, reserved, aloof--opposite indeed
+from her brother's cheerful good-fellowship. But for Rupert Craven this
+girl was his world; she was obviously cleverer, more temperamental than
+he, and he felt this and bowed to it.
+
+These things Olva liked in him, and had the boy not been so intimate
+with Cardillac and Carfax, Olva might have made advances, Craven took a
+man of the Carfax type with extreme simplicity; he thought his geniality
+and physical strength excused much coarseness and vulgarity. He was
+still young enough to have the Public School code--the most amazing
+thing in the history of the British nation--and because Carfax bruised
+his way as a forward through many football matches, and fought a
+policeman on Parker's Piece one summer evening, Rupert Craven thought
+him a jolly good fellow. Carfax also had had probably, at the bottom of
+his dirty, ignoble soul, more honest affection for Craven than for
+any one in the world. He had tried to behave himself in that ingenuous
+youth's company.
+
+Now young Craven, disturbed, unhappy, anxious, stood in Olva's door.
+
+"I say, Dune, I hope I'm not disturbing you?"
+
+"Not a bit."
+
+"It's a rotten time to come." Craven came in and sat down. "I'm awfully
+worried."
+
+"Worried?"
+
+"Yes, about Carfax. No one knows what's happened to him. He may have
+gone up to town, of course, but if he did he went without an exeat.
+Thompson saw him go out about two-thirty yesterday afternoon---was
+going to Grantchester, because he yelled it back to Cards, who asked him
+where he was off to--not been heard or seen since."
+
+"Oh, he's sure to be all right," Olva said easily.
+
+"He's up in town!"
+
+"Yes, I expect he is, but I don't know that that makes it any better.
+There's some woman he's been getting in a mess with I know--didn't say
+anything to me about it, but I heard of it from Cards."
+
+"Well--" Olva slowly lit his pipe--"there's something else too. He was
+always in with a lot of these roughs in the town--stable men and the
+rest. He used to get tips from them, he always said, and he's had awful
+rows with some of them before now. You know what a temper he's got,
+especially when he's been drinking at all. I shouldn't wonder if he
+hadn't a fight one fine day and got landed on the chin, or something,
+and left."
+
+"Oh! Carfax can look after himself all right. He's used to that kind of
+company."
+
+Olva gazed, through the smoke of his pipe, dreamily into the fire.
+
+"You don't like him," Craven said suddenly.
+
+Olva turned slowly in his chair and looked at him. "Why! What makes you
+say that?"
+
+"Something Carfax told me the other day. We were sitting one evening in
+his room and he suddenly said to me, 'You know there _is_ one fellow in
+this place who hates me like poison--always has hated me.' I asked him
+who it was. He said it was you. I was immensely surprised, because I'd
+always thought you very good friends--as good friends as you ever are
+with any one, Dune. You don't exactly take any of us to your breast, you
+know!"
+
+Dune smiled. "No, I think I've made a mistake in keeping so much alone.
+It looks as though I thought myself so damned superior. But I assure you
+Carfax was--is--quite wrong. We've been friendly enough all our days."
+
+"No," said Craven slowly, "I don't think you do like him. I've watched
+you since. He's an awfully good fellow---really---at heart, you know.
+I do hope things are all right. I sent off a wire to his uncle in town
+half an hour ago to ask whether he were there. I don't know why I'm so
+anxious. . . . It's all right, of course, but I'm uneasy."
+
+"Well, you're quite wrong about my disliking Carfax," Olva went on. "And
+I think, altogether, it's about time I came off my perch. For one thing
+I'm going to take up Rugger properly."
+
+"Oh, but that's splendid! Will you play against St. Martin's to-morrow?
+It will relieve Lawrence like anything if you will. They've got Cards,
+Worcester and Tundril, and they want a fourth Three badly. My word,
+Dune, that would be splendid. We'll have you a Blue after all."
+
+"A little late for that, I'm afraid."
+
+"Not a bit of it. They keep on changing the Threes. Of course Cards is
+having a good shot at it, but he isn't down against the Harlequins on
+Saturday, and mighty sick he is about it." Craven got up to go. "Well,
+I must be moving. Perhaps Carfax is back in his rooms. There may be word
+of him anyway."
+
+Olva's pipe was out. The matchbox on the mantelpiece was empty. He felt
+in his pocket for the little silver box that he always carried. It was
+a box, with the Dune arms stamped upon it, that his father had given to
+him. He had it, he remembered, yesterday when he set out on his walk.
+He felt in all his pockets. These were the clothes that he was wearing
+yesterday. Perhaps it was in his bedroom. He went in to look, and Craven
+meanwhile watched him from the door.
+
+"What have you lost?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+It was not in the bedroom. He felt in the overcoat that he had been
+wearing. It was not there.
+
+"Nothing. It's a matchbox of mine--must have dropped out of a pocket."
+
+"Sorry. Daresay it will turn up. Well, see you later."
+
+Craven vanished; then suddenly put his head in through the door.
+
+"Oh, I say, Dune, come in to supper to-morrow night. Home I mean. My
+sister's back from Dresden, and I'd like you to know her. I'm sure you'd
+get on."
+
+"Thanks very much, I'd like to come." Olva stood in the centre of the
+room, his hands clenched, his face white. He must have dropped the box
+in the wood. He had it on his walk, he had lit his pipe. . . . Of course
+they would find it. Here then was the end. Now for the first time
+the horror of death came upon him, filing the room, turning it black,
+killing the fire, the colour. His body was frozen with horror--already
+his throat was choking, his eyes burning. The room swung slowly round
+him, turning, turning. "They shan't take me. . . . They shan't take
+me." His face was cruel, his mouth twisted. He saw the little silver box
+lying there, open, exposed, upon the grass, glittering against the dull
+green. He turned to the window with desperate, hunted eyes. Already he
+fancied that he heard their steps upon the stair. He stood, his body
+flung back, his hands pressing upon the table. "They shan't take me.
+. . . They shan't take me." The door turned, slowly opened. It was Mrs.
+Ridge with a duster. He gave a little sigh and rolled over, tumbling
+back against the chair, unconscious.
+
+
+3
+
+"There, sir, now I _do_ 'ope as you'll be all right. Too much book-work,
+_that's_ what it is, but if a doctor----"
+
+Olva was lying in his chair now, very pale, his eyes closed.
+
+"No, thank you, Mrs. Ridge. It's all right now, thank you--quite all
+right. Yes, I'm ready for lunch--very silly of me."
+
+Mrs. Ridge departed to fetch the luncheon-dish from the College kitchens
+and to tell the porter Thompson all about it on the way. "Pore young
+gentleman, there 'e was as you might say white as a sheet all of a 'eap.
+It gave me a turn _I_ can assure you, Mr. Thompson."
+
+His lunch was untasted. It seemed to him that he had now lost all power
+of control. He could only face the inevitable fact of his approaching
+capture. The sudden discovery of the loss of the matchbox had clanged
+the facts about his ears with the discordant scream of closing gates.
+He was captured, caught irretrievably, like a rat in a trap. He did
+not wish to be caught like a rat in a trap. This was a free world.
+Air, light, colour were about him on every side. To die, fighting, on
+a hill-top, in a battle-field, that was one thing. To see them crowding
+into his room, to be dragged into a dark airless place, to be caught by
+the neck and throttled. . . .
+
+Mrs. Ridge cleared away the lunch with much shaking of the head. Olva
+lay in his chair watching, with eyes that never closed nor stirred, the
+crackling golden fire. Beyond the window the world was of blue steel. He
+could fancy the still gleaming waters of the lake that stretched beyond
+the grass lawns; he could fancy the red brick of the buildings that
+clung like some frieze to the horizon. Along the stone courtyard rang
+the heavy football boots of men going to the Upper Fields. He could
+see their red and blue jerseys, their short blue trousers, their tight
+stockings--the healthy swing of their bodies as they tramped. Men would
+be going down to the river now--freshmen would be hearing reluctantly,
+some of them with tears, the coarse and violent criticism of the
+Third Year men who were tabbing them. All the world was moving. He was
+surrounded, there in his silent room, with an amazing sense of life. He
+seemed to realize, for the first time, what it was that Cambridge was
+doing . . . all this physical life marching through the cold bright air,
+strength, poetry, the great stir and enthusiasm of the Young Blood of
+the world . . . and he, waiting for those steps on the stair, for those
+grim faces in the open door. The world left him alone. As the afternoon
+advanced, the tramp of the footballers was no longer heard, silence,
+bound by the shining frost of the beautiful day, lay about the grey
+buildings. Soon a melody of thrumming kettles would rise into the air,
+in every glowing room tea would be preparing, the glorious luxury
+of rest after stinging exercise would fill the courts with worship,
+unconsciously driven, skywards, to the Powers of Health. And then, after
+years of time, as it seemed, faintly through the closed windows at
+last came the single note of St. Martin's bell. That meant that it was
+quarter to five. Almost unconsciously he rose, put on his cap and gown
+and passed through the twilit streets that were stealing now into a dim
+glow under their misty lamps. The great chapel of St. Martin's, planted
+like some couchant animal grey and mysterious against the blue of the
+evening sky, flung through its windows the light of its many candles.
+He found a seat at the back of the dark high-hanging ante-chapel. He
+was alone there. Towards the inner chapel the white-robed choir moved
+softly; for a moment the curtains were drawn aside revealing the misty
+candle-light within; the white choir passed through--the curtains Fell
+again, leaving Olva alone with the great golden trumpeting angels above
+the organ for his company.
+
+Then great peace came upon him. Some one had taken his soul, softly,
+with gentle hands, and was caring for it. He was suddenly freed from
+responsibility, and as the soothing comfort stole about him he knew that
+now he had simply to wait to be shown what it was that he must do. This
+was not the strange indifference of yesterday, nor the physical strength
+of the morning . . . peace, such peace as he had never before known, had
+come to him. From the heart of the darkness up into the glowing beauty
+of the high roof the music rose. It was Wednesday afternoon and the
+voices were un accompanied. Soon the _Insanae et Vanae_ climbed in wave
+after wave of melody, was caught, held, lingered in the air, softly died
+again.
+
+Olva was detached--he saw his body beaten, imprisoned, tortured, killed.
+But he was not there. He was riding heaven in quest of God.
+
+
+4
+
+At the gates of his college the news met him. He had been waiting for
+it so long a time that now he had to act his horror. It seemed to him an
+old, old story--this tale of a murder in Sannet Wood.
+
+Groups of men were waiting in the cloisters, waiting for the doors to
+open for "Hall." As Olva came towards the gates an undergraduate, white,
+breathless, brushed past him and burst into the quiet, murmuring groups.
+
+"My God, have you heard?"
+
+Olva passed through the iron gates. The groups broke. He had the
+impression of many men standing back--black in the dim light--waiting,
+listening.
+
+There was an instant's silence. Then, the man's voice breaking into a
+shrill scream, the news came tumbling out. It seemed to flash a sudden
+glare upon the blackness.
+
+"It's Carfax--Carfax--he's been murdered."
+
+The word was tossed, caught, flung against the stone pillars--
+"Murdered! Murdered! Murdered!"
+
+"They've just brought his body in now, found it in Sannet Wood
+this evening; a working man found it. Been there two days. His neck
+broken----"
+
+The mysterious groups scattered into strange fantastic shapes. There was
+a pause and then a hundred voices began at once. Some one spoke to Olva
+and he answered; his voice low and stern. . . . On every side confusion.
+
+But for himself, like steel armour encasing his body, was the strange
+calm--aloof, unmoved, dispassionate--that had come to him half an hour
+ago.
+
+He was alone--like God.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MARGARET CRAVEN
+
+1
+
+It is essential to the maintenance of the Cambridge spirit that there
+should be no melodrama. Into that placid and speculative air real
+life tumbles with a resounding shock and the many souls that have been
+building, these many years, with careful elaboration, walls of defence
+and protection find themselves suddenly naked and indecent before the
+world. For that army of men who use Cambridge as a gate to the world
+in front of them the passage through the narrow streets is too swift to
+afford more in after life than a pleasant reminiscence. It is because
+Cambridge is the bridge between stern discipline and pleasant freedom
+that it is so happily remembered; but there are those who adopt
+Cambridge as their abiding home, and it is for these that real life is
+impossible.
+
+Beneath these grey walls as the years pass slowly the illusions grow.
+Closer and closer creep the walls of experience, softer and thicker
+are the garments worn to keep out the cold, gentler and gentler are
+the speculations born of a good old Port and a knowledge of the Greek
+language. About the High Tables voices softly dispute the turning of a
+phrase, eyes mildly salute the careful dishes of a wisely chosen cook,
+gentle patronage is bestowed upon the wild ruffian of the outer world.
+Many bells ring, many fires are burning, many lamps are lit, many leaves
+of many books are turned--busily, busily hands are raising walls of
+self-defence; the world at first regretted, then patronized, is now
+forgotten . . . hush, he sleeps, his feet in slippers, his head upon
+the softest cushion, his hand still covering the broad page of his
+dictionary. . . . Nothing, not birth nor love, nor death must disturb
+his repose.
+
+And here, in the heart of the Sannet Wood, is death from violence,
+death, naked, crude, removed from all sense of life as we know it. The
+High Tables avoid Carfax's body with all possible discretion; for an
+hour or two the Port has lost its flavour, Homer is hidden by a
+cloud, the gentle chatter is curtailed and silenced. Amongst the lower
+order--those wild and turbulent undergraduates--it is the only topic.
+Carfax is very generally known; he had ridden, he had rowed, he had
+played cricket. A member of the only sporting club in the University, he
+had been known as a "real sportsman and a damned good fellow" because he
+was often drunk and frequently spent an evening in London . . . and now
+he is dead.
+
+In Saul's a number of very young spirits awake to the consciousness of
+death. Here is a red-faced hearty fellow as fit as anything one moment
+and dead the next. Never before had the fact been faced that this might
+happen to any one. Let the High Table dismiss it easily, it is none
+so simple for those who have not had time to build up those defending
+walls. For a day or two there is a hush about the place, voices are
+soft, men talk in groups, the mystery is the one sensation. . . . The
+time passes, there are other interests, once more the High Table can
+taste its wine. Death is again bundled into noisier streets, into a
+harder, shriller air. . . .
+
+
+2
+
+Olva, on the morning after the discovery of the body, heard from Mrs.
+Ridge speculations as to the probable criminal. "You take _my_ word, Mr.
+Dune, sir, it was one of them there nasty tramps--always 'anging round
+they are, and Miss Annett was only yesterday speakin' to me of a ugly
+feller comin' round to their back door and askin' for bread, weren't
+you, Miss Annett?"
+
+"I was, indeed, Mrs. Ridge."
+
+"And 'im with the nastiest 'eavy blue jaw you ever saw on a man, 'adn't
+'e, Miss Annett?"
+
+"He had, indeed, Mrs. Ridge."
+
+"Ah, I shouldn't wonder--nasty-sort-o'-looking feller. And that
+Sannet Wood too--nasty lonely place with its old stones and
+all--comfortable?--I _don't_ think."
+
+Olva made inquiries as to the stones.
+
+"Why, ever so old, they say--before Christ, I've 'eard. Used to cut up
+'uman flesh and eat it like the pore natives, and there's a ugly lookin'
+stone in that very wood where they did it too, or so I've 'eard. Would
+you go along that way in the dark, Miss Annett?"
+
+"Not much--I grant _you_, Mrs. Ridge."
+
+"Oh yes! not likely on a dark night, I _don't_ think!--and that pore Mr.
+Carfax--well, all I say is, I 'opes they catch 'im, that's all _I_ say
+. . ." with further reminiscence concerning Mrs. Birch who had worked
+on Carfax's staircase the last ten years and never "'ad no kind of luck.
+There was that Mr. Oliver---"
+
+Final dismissal of Mrs. Ridge and Miss Annett.
+
+Meanwhile, strange enough the relief that he felt because the body was
+actually removed from that wood. No longer possible now to see it lying
+there with the leg bent underneath, the head falling straight back, the
+ring on the finger. . . . Curious, too, that the matchbox had not been
+discovered; they must have searched pretty thoroughly by now--perhaps
+after all it had not been dropped there.
+
+But over him there had fallen a strange lassitude. He was outside,
+beyond it all.
+
+And then Craven came to see him. The event had wrought in the boy a
+great change. It was precisely with a character like Craven's that such
+an incident must cleave a division between youth and manhood. He had,
+until last evening, considered nothing for himself; his father's death
+had occurred when he was too young to see anything in it but a perfectly
+natural removal of some one immensely old. The world had seemed the
+easiest, the simplest of places, his years at Rugby had been delight.
+Fully free from shocks of any kind. Good health, friendship, a little
+learning, these things had made the days pass swiftly. Rupert Craven had
+been yesterday, a child precisely typical of the system in which he
+had been drilled; now he was something different. Olva knew that he was
+capable of depths of feeling because of his extraordinary devotion to
+his sister. Craven had often spoken of her to Olva--"So different
+from me, the most brilliant person in the world. Her music is really
+wonderful----people who know, I mean, all say so. But you see we're the
+same age--only two of us. We've always been everything to one another."
+
+Olva wondered why Craven had told him. It was not as though they had
+ever been very intimate, but Craven seemed to think that Olva and his
+sister would have much in common.
+
+Olva wondered, as he looked at Craven standing there in the doorway, how
+this sister would take the change in her brother. He had suddenly, as he
+looked at Craven, a perception of the number of lives with whose course
+his action had involved him. The wheel was beginning to turn. . . .
+
+The light had gone from Craven's eyes. His vitality and energy had
+slipped from him, leaving his body heavy, unalert. He seemed puzzled,
+awed; there were dark lines under his eyes, his cheeks were pale and his
+mouth had lost its tendency to smile, its lines were heavy; but, above
+all, his expression was interrogative. Finally, he was puzzled.
+
+For an instant, as he looked at him, Olva felt that he could not
+face him, then with a deliberate summoning of the resources of his
+temperament he strung himself to whatever the day might bring forth.
+
+"This is awful----"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Of course it doesn't matter to you, Dune, as it does to me, but I knew
+the fellow so awfully well. It's horrible, horrible. That he should have
+died--like that."
+
+Olva broke out suddenly. "After all not such a bad way to die--swift
+enough. I don't suppose Carfax valued life especially."
+
+"Oh! he enjoyed it--enjoyed it like anything. And that it should be
+taken so trivially, for no reason at all. It seems to be almost certain
+that it was some tramp or other--robbery the motive probably, and then
+he was startled and left the money--it was all lying about on the grass.
+But then Carfax was mixed up with so many ruffians of one kind and
+another. It may have been revenge or any-thing. I believe they are
+searching the wood now, but they're not likely to bring it home to
+any one. Misty day, no one about, and the man simply used his fist
+apparently--he must have been most awfully strong. Have you ever heard
+of any one killing a man with one blow--except a prize-fighter?"
+
+"It's simply a knack, I believe, if you catch a fellow in a certain
+spot."
+
+Supposing that some wretched tramp were arrested and accused? Some dirty
+fellow from behind a hedge? All the tramps, all the ruffians of the
+world were now a danger. The accusation of another would bring the truth
+from him of course. His dark eyes moved across the room to Craven's
+white, tired face. Within himself there moved now with every hour
+stirring more acutely this desire for life. If only they would let him
+alone . . . let the body alone . . . let it all alone. Let the world
+sink back to its earlier apathy.
+
+His voice was resentful.
+
+"Carfax wasn't a good fellow, Craven. No, I know--_Nil nini bonum_ . . .
+and all the rest of it. But it looks a bit like a judgment--judgment
+from Heaven."
+
+Craven broke in.
+
+"But now--just now when his body's lying there. I know there were things
+he did. He was a bit wild, of course----"
+
+"Yes, there was a girl, a girl in Midgett's tobacconist's shop--his
+daughter. Carfax ruined her, body and soul . . . ruined her. He boasted
+of it. Looks like a judgment."
+
+"I don't care." Craven sprang up. "Carfax may have done things, but he
+was a friend of mine, and a good friend. They _must_ catch the man, they
+_must_. It's a duty they owe us all. To have such a man as that hanging
+about. Why, it might happen to any of us. You must help me, Dune."
+
+"Help you?"
+
+"Yes--help them to catch the murderer. We must think of everything that
+could make a clue. Perhaps this girl. I _had_ heard something about her,
+of course; but perhaps there was another lover, a rival or something, or
+perhaps her father----"
+
+"Well," Dune said slowly, "my advice to you, Craven, is not to think too
+much about the whole business. A thing like that is certain to get on
+one's nerves--leave it alone as much as you can----"
+
+"What a funny chap you are! You're always like that. As detached from
+everything as though you weren't alive at all. Why, I believe, if you'd
+committed the murder yourself you wouldn't be much more concerned!"
+
+"Well, we've got to go on as we're made, I suppose, only _do_ take my
+advice about not getting morbid over it. By the way, I see I'm playing
+against St. Martin's this afternoon."
+
+"Yes. I thought at first I wouldn't play. But I suppose it's better to
+go on doing one's ordinary things. You're coming in to-night, aren't
+you?
+
+"Are you sure you want me after all this disturbance?
+
+"Why, of course; my mother's expecting you. Half-past seven. Don't
+dress." He raised his arms above his head, yawning. He was obviously
+better for the talk. His eyes were less strained, his body more alert.
+"I'm tired to death. Didn't get a wink of sleep last night--saw poor
+Carfax in the dark--ugh! Well, we meet this afternoon."
+
+When the door closed Olva had the sensation of having been on his trial.
+Craven's eyes still followed him. Nerves, of course . . . but they had
+strangely reminded him of Bunker.
+
+
+3
+
+Olva had never been to Craven's house before. It stood in a little
+street that joined Cambridge to the country. At one end of the prim
+little road the lamps stopped abruptly and a white chalk path ran
+amongst dark common to a distant wood.
+
+At the other end a broader road with tram-lines crossed. The house was
+built by itself, back from the highway, with a tiny drive and some dark
+laurels. It was always gloomy and apparently unkept. The autumn leaves
+were dull and sodden upon the drive; the bell and knocker upon the heavy
+door, from which the paint was worn in places, were rusty. No sound came
+from the little road beyond.
+
+The place seemed absolutely without life. Olva now, as he sent the
+bell pealing through the passages, knew that this dark desertion had an
+effect upon his nerves. A week ago he would not have noticed the place
+at all--now he longed for lights and noise and company. He had played
+foot-ball that afternoon better than ever before; that, too, had been a
+defence, almost a protest, an assertion of his right to live.
+
+As he waited his thoughts pursued him. He had heard them say to-night
+that no clue had been discovered, that the police were entirely at
+a loss. It was impossible to trace foot-marks amongst all that
+undergrowth. No one had been seen in that direction during the hours
+when the murder must have been committed . . . so on--so on . . . all
+this talk, this discussion. The wretched man was dead--no one would miss
+him--no one cared--leave him alone, leave him alone. Olva pulled the
+bell again furiously. Why couldn't they come? He wanted to escape from
+this dark and dismal drive; these hanging laurels, the cold little
+road, with its chilly lamps. An old and tottering woman, her nose nearly
+touching her chin and her fingers in black mittens, opened at last and
+led Olva into the very blackest and closest little hall that he had ever
+encountered. The air was thick and musty with a strangely mingled smell
+of burning wood, of faded pot-pourri, of dried skins. The ceiling was
+low and black, and the only window was one of a dull red glass that
+glimmered mournfully at a distance. The walls were hung with the
+strangest things, prizes apparently that the late Dr. Craven had
+secured in China--grinning heathen gods, uncouth weapons, dried skins of
+animals. Out of this dark little hall Olva was led into a drawing-room
+that was itself nearly as obscure. Here the ceiling was higher, but the
+place square and dark; a deep set stone fireplace in which logs were
+burning was the most obvious thing there. For the rest the floor seemed
+littered with old twisted tables, odd chairs with carved legs, here a
+plate with sea shells, here a glass case with some pieces of ribbon,
+old rusty coins, silver ornaments. There were many old prints upon the
+walls, landscapes, some portraits, and stuck here and there elaborate
+arrangements of silk and ribbon and paper fans and coloured patterns.
+Opposite the dark diamond-paned window was an old gilt mirror that
+seemed to catch all the room into its dusty and faded reflections, and
+to make what was old and tattered enough already, doubly dreary. The
+room had the close and musty air of the hall as though windows were but
+seldom opened; there was a scent as though oranges had recently been
+eaten there.
+
+At first Olva had thought that he was alone in the room; then when
+his eyes had grown more accustomed to the light he saw, sitting in a
+high-backed chair, motionless, gazing into the fire, with her fine white
+hands lying in her lap, a lady. She reminded him, in that first vision
+of her, of "Phiz's" pictures of Mrs. Clennam in _Little Dorrit_, and
+always afterwards that connection remained with him. Her thin, spare
+figure had something intense, almost burning, in its immobility, in the
+deep black of her dress and hair, in the white sharpness of the outline
+of her face.
+
+How admirably, it seemed to him, she suited that room. She too may
+have thought as she turned slowly to look at him that he fitted his
+background, with the spare dignity of his figure, his fine eyes, the
+black and white contrast of his body so that his cheeks, his hands,
+seemed almost to shine against the faded air. It is certain that they
+recognized at once some common ground so that they met as though they
+had known one another for many years. The old minor caught for a moment
+the fine gravity and silence of his approach to her as he waited for her
+to greet him.
+
+But before she could speak to him the door had opened and Margaret
+Craven entered. In her gravity, her silence, she seemed at once to claim
+kinship with them both. She had the black hair, the pale face, the sharp
+outline of her mother. As she came quietly towards them her reserve was
+wonderful, but there was tenderness in the soft colour of her eyes,
+in the lines of her mouth that made her also beautiful. But beyond the
+tenderness there was also an energy that made every move seem like an
+attack. In spite of her reserve there was impatience, and Olva's first
+judgment of her was that the last thing in the world that she could
+endure was muddle; she shone with the clean-cut decision of fine steel.
+
+Mrs. Craven spoke without rising from her chair.
+
+"I am very glad to see you, Mr. Dune, Rupert has often told us about
+you."
+
+Margaret advanced to him and held out her hand. She looked him straight
+in the eyes.
+
+"We have met before, you know."
+
+"I had not forgotten," he answered her gravely.
+
+Then Rupert came in. It was strange how one saw now, when he stood
+beside his mother and sister, that he had some of their quality of stern
+reserve. He had always seemed to Olva a perfectly ordinary person of
+natural good health and good temper, and now this quality that had
+descended upon him increased the fresh attention that he had already
+during these last two days demanded. For something beyond question the
+Carfax affair must be held responsible. It seemed now to be the only
+thing that could hold his mind. He spoke very little, but his white
+face, his tired eyes, his listless conversation, showed the occupation
+of his mind. It was indeed a melancholy evening.
+
+To Olva, his nerves being already on edge, it was almost intolerable.
+They passed from the drawing-room into a tiny dining-room--a room that
+was as dingy and faded as the rest, with a dull red paper on the walls
+and an old blue carpet. The old woman waited; the food was of the
+simplest.
+
+Mrs. Craven scarcely spoke at all. She sat with her eyes gravely fixed
+in front of her, save when she raised them to flash them for an instant
+at Olva. He found this sudden gaze extraordinarily disconcerting; it was
+as though she were reasserting her claim to some common understanding
+that existed between them, to some secret that belonged to them alone.
+
+They avoided, for the most part, Carfax's death. Once Margaret Craven
+said: "One of the most astonishing things about anything of this kind
+seems to me the bravery of the murderer--the bravery I mean that is
+demanded of any one during the days between the crime and his arrest.
+To be in possession of that tremendous secret, to be at war, as it
+were, with the world, and yet to lead, in all probability, an ordinary
+life--that demands courage."
+
+"One may accustom oneself to anything," Mrs. Craven said. Her voice was
+deep and musical, and her words seemed to linger almost like an echo in
+the air.
+
+Olva thought as he looked at Margaret Craven that there was a strength
+there that could face anything; it was more than courage; it might,
+under certain circumstances, become fanaticism. But he knew that whereas
+Mrs. Craven stirred in him a deep restlessness and disquiet, Margaret
+Craven quieted and soothed him, almost, it seemed, deliberately, as
+though she knew that he was in trouble.
+
+He said: "I should think that his worst enemy, if he have any
+imagination at all, must be his loneliness. I can conceive that the
+burden of the secret, even though there be no chance whatever of
+discovery, must make that loneliness intolerable."
+
+Here Rupert Craven interrupted as though he were longing to break away
+from the subject.
+
+"You played the finest game of your life this afternoon, Dune. I
+never saw anything like that last try of yours. Whymper was on the
+touch-line--I saw him. The 'Varsity's certain to try you again on
+Saturday."
+
+"I've been slack too long," Olva said, laughing. "I never enjoyed
+anything more than this afternoon."
+
+"I played the most miserable game I've ever played--couldn't get this
+beastly thing out of my head."
+
+Olva felt as though he were almost at the end of his endurance. At that
+moment he thought that he would have preferred them to burst the doors
+and arrest him. He had never known such fatigue. If he could sleep he
+did not care what happened to him.
+
+The rest of the evening seemed a dream. The dark, crowded drawing-room
+flickered in the light from the crackling fire. Mrs. Craven, in her
+stiff chair, never moving her eyes, flung shadows on the walls. Some
+curtain blew drearily, with little secret taps, against the door. Rupert
+Craven sat moodily in a dark corner.
+
+At Olva's request Margaret Craven played. The piano was old and needed
+attention, but he thought that he had never heard finer playing. First
+she gave him some modern things--some Debussy, _Les Miroires_ of Ravel,
+some of the Russian ballet music of _Cleopatre_. These she flung at him,
+fiercely, aggressively, playing them as though she would wring cries of
+protest from the very notes.
+
+"There," she cried when she had finished, flashing a look that was
+almost indignant at him. "There is your modern stuff--I can give you
+more of it."
+
+"I would like something better now," he said gravely.
+
+Without a word that mood left her. In the dim candle-light her eyes
+were tender again. Very softly she played the first two movements of the
+"Moonlight" sonata.
+
+"I am not in the mood for the last movement," she said, and closed the
+piano. Still about the old silver, the dark walls, the log fire, the old
+gilt mirror, the sweet, delicate notes lingered.
+
+Soon afterwards he left them. As he passed down the chill, deserted
+street, abandoning the dark laurelled garden, he saw behind him the
+stern shadow of Mrs. Craven black upon the wall.
+
+But the loneliness, the unrest, walked behind him. Silence was beginning
+to be terrible. God--this God--this Unknown God--pursued him. Only a
+little comfort out of the very heart of that great pursuing shadow came
+to him--Margaret Craven's grave and tender eyes.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+STONE ALTARS
+
+1
+
+Carfax was buried. There had been an inquest; certain tramps and
+wanderers had been arrested, examined and dismissed. No discovery had
+been made, and a verdict of Wilful "Wilful murder against some person or
+persons unknown" had been returned. It was generally felt that Carfax's
+life had not been of the most savoury and that there were, in all
+probability, amongst the back streets of Cambridge several persons who
+had owed him a grudge. He appeared, indeed, in the discoveries that were
+now made on every side, to be something better dead than alive. A stout
+and somnolent gentleman, with red cheeks and eyes half closed, was the
+only mourner from the outside world at the funeral. This, it appeared,
+was an uncle. Father dead, mother divorced and leading a pleasant
+existence amongst the capitals of Europe. The uncle, although
+maintaining a decent appearance of grief, was obviously, at heart,
+relieved to be rid of his nephew so easily. Poor Carfax! For so rubicund
+and noisy a person he left strangely little mark upon the world. Within
+a fortnight the college had nearly lost account of his existence. He
+lent to Sannet Wood a sinister air that caused numberless undergraduates
+to cycle out in that direction. Now and again, when conversation
+flagged, some one revived the subject. But it was a horse that needed
+much whipping to make it go. It had kicked with its violent hoof upon
+the soft walls of Cambridge life. For a moment it had seemed that it
+would force its way, but the impression had been of the slightest.
+
+Even within the gates and courts of Saul's itself the impression that
+Carfax had left faded with surprising swiftness into a melodramatic
+memory. But nothing could have been more remarkable than the resolute
+determination of these young men to push grim facts away. They were
+not made--one could hear it so eloquently explained--for that kind of
+tragedy. The autumn air, the furious exercise, the hissing kettles, the
+decent and amiable discussions on Life reduced to the importance of a
+Greek Accent--these things rejected violently the absurdity of Tragic
+Crudity.
+
+They were quite right, these young men. They paid their shining pounds
+for the capture--conscious or not as it might be--of an atmosphere, a
+delicate and gentle setting to the crudity of their later life. Carfax,
+when alive, had blundered into coarse disaster but had blundered in back
+streets. Now the manner of his death painted him in shrieking colours.
+The harmony was disturbed, therefore he must go.
+
+Of more importance to this world of Saul's was the strange revival--as
+though from the dead--of Olva Dune. They had been prepared, many of
+them, for some odd development, but this perfectly normal, healthy
+interest in the affairs of the College was the last thing that his
+grave, romantic air could ever have led any one to expect. His football
+in the first place opened wide avenues of speculation. First there had
+been the College game, then there had been the University match against
+the Harlequins, and it was, admittedly, a very long time since any
+one had seen anything like it. He had seemed, in that game against the
+Harlequins, to possess every virtue that should belong to the ideal
+three-quarter--pace, swerve, tackle, and through them all the steady
+working of the brain. Nevertheless those earlier games were yet
+remembered against him, and it was confidently said that this
+brilliance, with a man of Dune's temperament, could not possibly last.
+But, nevertheless, the expectation of his success brought him up, with
+precipitation, against the personality of Cardillac, and it was this
+implied rivalry that agitated the College. It is only in one's second
+year that a matter of this kind can assume world-shaking importance.
+The First-year Undergraduate is too near the child, the Third-year
+Undergraduate too near the man. For the First-year man School, for the
+Third-year man the World looms too heavily. So it is from the men of
+the Second year that the leaders are to be selected, and at this time in
+Saul's Cardillac seemed to have no rival. He combined, to an admirable
+degree, the man of the world and the sportsman; he had an air that was
+beyond rubies. He was elegant without being effeminate, arrogant without
+being conceited, indifferent without being blase. He had learnt, at
+Eton, and at the knee of a rich and charming mother, that to be crude
+was the unforgivable sin. He worshipped the god of good manners and
+would have made an admirable son of the great Lord Chesterfield. Finally
+he was the only man in Saul's who had any "air" at all, and he had
+already travelled round the world and been introduced by his mother to
+Royalty at Marienbad.
+
+The only man who could ever have claimed any possible rivalry was Dune,
+and Dune had seemed determined, until now, to avoid any-thing of
+the kind. Suddenly the situation leapt upon the startled eyes of the
+attentive world. Possibility of excitement. . . .
+
+
+2
+
+Olva, himself, was entirely unconcerned by this threatened rivalry. He
+was being driven, by impulses that he understood only too well, into the
+noisiest life that he could manage to find about him. The more noise the
+better; he had only a cold fear at his heart that, after all, it would
+penetrate his dreaded loneliness too little, let it be as loud a noise
+as he could possibly summon.
+
+He had not now--and this was the more terrible--any consciousness of
+Carfax at all; there was waiting for him, lurking, beast-like, until its
+inevitable moment, something far more terrible.
+
+Meanwhile he made encounters. . . . There was Bunning. The Historical
+Society in Saul's was held together by the Senior Tutor. This gentleman,
+a Mr. Gregg, was thin, cadaverous, blue-chinned, mildly insincere. It
+was his view of University life that undergraduates were born yesterday
+and would believe anything that you told them. In spite, however, of
+their tender years there was a lurking ferocity that must be checked by
+an indulgent heartiness of manner, as one might offer a nut to a monkey.
+His invariable manner of salutation--"_Come_ along, Simter--the very man
+I wanted to see"--lost its attraction through much repetition, and the
+hearty assumption on the amiable gentleman's part that "we are all
+boys together" froze many undergraduates into a chill and indifferent
+silence. He had not taken Holy Orders, but he gave, nevertheless, the
+effect of adopting the language of the World, the Flesh and the Devil in
+order that he might the better spy out the land. He attracted, finally,
+to himself certain timid souls who preferred insincere comfort to none
+at all, but he was hotly rejected by more able-bodied persons.
+
+Nevertheless the Historical Society prospered, and Olva one evening,
+driven he knew not by what impulse, attended its meeting. When he
+entered Mr. Gregg's room some dozen men were already seated there. The
+walls were hung with groups in which a younger and even thinner Mr.
+Gregg was displayed, a curious figure in "shorts." On one side of the
+room two oars were hung and over the mantelpiece (littered with pipes)
+there were photographs of the "Mona Lisa" and Da Vinci's "Last Supper."
+The men in the room were embarrassed and silent. Under a strong light a
+minute undergraduate with enormous spectacles sat, white and trembling;
+it was obviously he who was to read the paper.
+
+Mr. Gregg came forward heartily. "Why, Dune, this is quite splendid! The
+very man! Why, it is long since you've honoured our humble gathering.
+Baccy? That's right. Help yourself. Erdington's going to read to us
+about the Huns and stand a fire of questions afterwards, aren't you,
+Erdington?"
+
+The youth in spectacles gulped.
+
+"_That's_ right. _That's_ right. Comfortable now, Dune? Got all you
+want? _That's_ right. Now we can begin, I think. Minutes of the last
+meeting, Stevens."
+
+Olva placed himself in a corner and looked round the room. He found that
+most of the men were freshmen whose faces he did not know, but there,
+moving his fat body uneasily on a chair, was Bunning, and there, to his
+intense surprise, was Lawrence. That football hero was lounging with
+half-closed eyes in a large armchair. His broad back looked as though
+it would burst the wooden arms, and his plain, good-natured face beamed,
+through a cloud of smoke, upon the company. Below his short, light
+grey flannel trousers were bright purple socks. He had the body of a
+bullock--short, thick, broad, strong, thoroughly well calculated to
+withstand the rushes of oncoming three-quarters. Various freshmen flung
+timid glances at the hero every now and again; it was to them an event
+that they might have, for a whole hour, closely under their observation,
+this king among men.
+
+Olva wondered at his presence. He remembered that Lawrence was taking
+a "pass" degree in History. He knew also that Lawrence somewhere in the
+depths of his slow brain had a thirst for knowledge and at the same time
+a certain assurance that he would never acquire any. His slow voice, his
+slow smile, the great, heavy back, the short thick legs attracted Olva;
+there was something simple and primeval here that appealed to the Dune
+blood. Moreover, since the afternoon when Olva had played against
+the Harlequins and covered himself with glory, Lawrence had shown a
+disposition to make friends. Old Lawrence might be stupid, but, as a
+background, he was the most important man in the College. His slow,
+lumbering body as it rolled along the Court was followed by the eyes of
+countless freshmen. His appearance on the occasion of a College concert
+was the signal for an orgy of applause. Cardillac might lead the
+College, but he was, nevertheless, of common clay. Lawrence was of the
+gods!
+
+Swift contrast the fat and shapeless Bunning! As the tremulous and
+almost tearful voice of little Erdington continued the solemn and dreary
+exposition of the Huns, Olva felt increasingly that Bunning's eye was
+upon him. Olva had not seen the creature since the night of the revival,
+and he was irritated with himself for the persistence of his interest.
+The man's pluck had, in the first place, struck him, but now it seemed
+to him that they were, in some undefinable measure, linked together. As
+Olva watched him, half contemptuously, half sarcastically, he tried
+to pin his brain down to the actual, definite connection. It seemed
+ultimately to hang round that dreadful evening when they had been
+together; it was almost---although this was absurd--as though Bunning
+knew; but, in spite of the certain assurance of his ignorance Olva
+felt as he moved uneasily under Bunning's gaze that the man himself was
+making some claim upon him. It was evident that Bunning was unhappy;
+he looked as though he had not slept; his face was white and puffy, his
+eyes dark and heavy. He was paying no attention to the "Huns," but was
+trying, obviously, to catch Olva's eye. As the reading progressed Olva
+became more and more uneasy. It showed the things that must be happening
+to his nerves. He had now that sensation that had often come to him
+lately that some one was waiting for him outside the door. He imagined
+that the man next to him, a spotty, thin and restless freshman, would
+suddenly turn to him and say quite casually--"By the way, you killed
+Carfax, didn't you?" Above all he imagined himself suddenly rising in
+his place and saying---"Yes, gentlemen, this is all very well, very
+interesting I'm sure, but I killed Carfax."
+
+His tortured brain was being driven, compelled to these utterances.
+Behind him still he felt that pursuing cloud; one day it would catch him
+and, out of the heart of it, there would leap . . .
+
+And all this because Bunning looked at him. It was becoming now a
+habit--so general that it was instinctive--that, almost unconsciously,
+he should, at a point like this, pull at his nerves. "They are watching
+you; they are watching you. Don't let them see you like this; pull
+yourself together. . . ."
+
+He did. Little Erdington's voice ceased. Mr. Gregg was heard saying:
+"It has always occurred to me that the Huns . . . " and then, after many
+speeches: "How does this point of view strike you, Erdington?"
+
+It didn't strike Erdington very strongly, and there was no other person
+present who seemed to be struck in any very especial direction. The
+discussion, therefore, quickly flagged. Olva escaped Bunning's pleading
+eyes, found his gown amongst a heap in the corner, and avoiding Mr.
+Gregg's pressing invitation to stay, plunged down the stairs. Behind
+him, then, making his heart leap into his mouth, was a slow, thick
+voice.
+
+"I say, Dune, what do you say to a little drink in my room after
+all that muck?" Above him, in the dark shadow of the stair, loomed
+Lawrence's thick body.
+
+"I shall be delighted," Olva said.
+
+Lawrence came lumbering down. He always spoke as though words were a
+difficulty to him. He left out any word that was not of vital necessity.
+
+"Muck that-awful muck. What do they want gettin' a piffler like that kid
+in the glasses to read his ideas? Ain't got any--not one--no more 'an I
+have."
+
+They reached the Court--it swam softly in the moonlight--stars burnt,
+here and there, in a trembling sky.
+
+Lawrence put his great arm through Olva's. "Rippin' game that o' yours
+yesterday. Rippin'." He seemed to lick his lips over it as a gourmet
+over a delicate dish.
+
+Lawrence pursued his slow thoughts.
+
+"I say, you know, you--re one of these clever ones--thinkin' an' writin'
+an' all that--an' _yet_ you play footer like an archangel--a blarsted
+archangel. Lucky devil!" He sighed heavily. "Every time I put on my
+footer boots," he pursued, "I say to myself, 'What you'd be givin',
+Jerry Lawrence, if you could just go and write a book! What you'd give!
+But it ain't likely--my spellin's somethin' shockin'."
+
+Here there was interruption. Several men came rattling; laughing and
+shouting, down the staircase behind Lawrence and Olva.
+
+"Oh, damn!" said Lawrence, slowly turning round upon them. Cardillac was
+there, also Bobby Galleon, Rupert Craven, and one or two more.
+
+Cardillac shouted. "Hul_lo_, Lawrence, old man. Is it true, as they say,
+that you've been sitting at the feet of our dearly beloved Gregg? How
+splendid for you!"
+
+"I've been at our Historical Society hearin' about the Huns, and
+therefore there's compellin' necessity for a drink," Lawrence said,
+moving in the direction of his room.
+
+"Oh! rot, don't go in yet. We're thinking of going round and paying
+Bunning a visit in another ten minutes. He's going to have a whole lot
+of men in for a prayer-meeting. Thompson's just brought word."
+
+Thompson, a wretched creature in the Second Year, who had, during his
+first term, been of the pious persuasion and had since turned traitor,
+offered an eager assurance.
+
+The news obviously tempted Lawrence. He moved his body slowly round.
+
+"Well," he said slowly, then he turned to Olva. "You'll come?" he said.
+
+"No, thanks," said Olva shortly. "Bunning's been ragged about enough.
+There's nothing the matter with the man."
+
+Cardillac's voice was amused. "Well, Dune, I daresay we can get on
+without you," he said.
+
+Lawrence said slowly, "Well, I don't know. P'raps it's mean on the man.
+I want a drink. I don't think I'm havin' any to-night, Cards."
+
+Cardillac was sharper. "Oh, nonsense, Lawrence, come along. It doesn't
+do the man any harm."
+
+"It frightens the fellow out of his wits," said Dune sharply. "You
+wouldn't like it yourself if you had a dozen fellows tumbling down upon
+your rooms and chucking your things out of the window."
+
+Rupert Craven said: "Well, I'm off anyhow. Work for me." He vanished
+into the shadow.
+
+Lawrence nodded. "Good-bye, Cards, old man. Go and play your old bridge
+or something--leave the wretched Bunnin' to his prayers."
+
+Lawrence and Olva moved away.
+
+
+3
+
+The first thing that Lawrence said when they were lounging comfortably
+in his worn but friendly chairs hit Olva, expecting peace here at any
+rate, like a blow.
+
+"Fellers have forgotten Carfax damn quick."
+
+In that good-natured face there was no suspicion, but Olva seemed to see
+there a curiosity, even an excitement.
+
+"Yes," he said, "they have."
+
+"Fellers," said Lawrence again, "aren't clever in this College. They get
+their firsts in Science--little measly pups from Board Schools who don't
+clean their teeth--and there are one or two men who can row a bit and
+play footer a bit and play cricket a bit--I grant you all that--but
+they _aren't_ clever--not what I call clever."
+
+Olva waited for the development of Lawrence's brain.
+
+"Now at St. Martin's they'll talk. They'll sit round a fire the whole
+blessed evenin' talkin'--about whether there's a God or isn't a God,
+about whether they're there or aren't there, about whether women are
+rotten or not, about jolly old Greece and jolly old Rome--_I_ know.
+That's the sort o' stuff you could go in for--damn interestin'. I'd like
+to listen to a bit of it, although they'd laugh if they heard me say so,
+but what I'm gettin' at is that there ain't any clever fellers in this
+old bundle o' bricks, and Carfax's death proves it."
+
+"How does it prove it?" asked Dune.
+
+"Why, don't you see, they'd have made more of Carfax. Nobody said a
+blessed thing that any one mightn't have said."
+
+Lawrence thought heavily for a moment or two, and then he brought out--
+
+"Carfax was a stinker--a rotten fellow. That's granted, but there was
+more in it than just Carfax. Why, any one could give him a knock on the
+chin any day and there's no loss, but to have a feller killed in Sannet
+Wood where all those old Druids---"
+
+As the words came from him Lawrence stopped.
+
+"Druids?" said Olva.
+
+"Why, yes. I wish I were a clever feller an' I could say what I mean,
+but if I'd been a man with a bit of grey matter that's what I'd have
+gone in for--those old stones, those old fellers who used to slash your
+throat to please their God. My soul, there's stuff there. _They_ knew
+what fighting _was--they'd_ have played footer with you. Ever since I
+was a tiny kid they've excited me, and if I'd been a brainy feller I'd
+have known a lot more, but the minute I start reactin' about them I
+get heavy, can't keep my eyes to it. But I've walked miles--often and
+often--to see a stone or a hill, don't yer know, and Sannet Wood's one
+o' the best. So, says I, when I hear about young Carfax bein' done
+for right there at the very place, I says to myself, 'You may look and
+look--hold your old inquests--collar your likely feller--but it wasn't a
+man that did it, and you'll have to go further than human beings if you
+fix on the culprit.'"
+
+This was, in all probability, the longest speech that Lawrence had ever
+made in his life. He himself seemed to think so, for he added in short
+jerks: "It was those old Druids--got sick--o' the sight--o' Carfax's
+dirty body--bangin' about in their preserves--an' they gave him a chuck
+under the chin," and after that there was silence.
+
+To Olva the effect of this was uncanny. He played, it seemed, a
+spiritual Blind Man's Buff. On every side of him things filled the air;
+once and again he would touch them, sometimes he would fancy that he was
+alone, clear, isolated, when suddenly something again would blunder up
+against him. And always with him, driving him into the bustle of his
+fellow men, flinging him, hurling him from one noise to another noise,
+was the terror of silence. Let him once be alone, once waiting in
+suspense, and he would hear. . . . What would he hear?
+
+He felt a sudden impulse to speak.
+
+"Do you know, Lawrence, in a kind of way I feel with you. I mean
+this--that if--I had, at any time, committed a murder or were indeed
+burdened by any tremendous breaking of a law, I believe it would be the
+consciousness of the Maker of the law that would pursue me. It sounds
+priggish, but I don't mean man. The laws that man has made
+nothing--subject to any temporary civilization, mere fences put up for a
+moment to keep the cattle in their proper fields. But the laws that God
+made--if you break one . . ."
+
+Lawrence tuned heavily in his chair.
+
+"Then you believe in God?"
+
+"Yes, I believe in God."
+
+After that there was silence. Both men felt uncomfortable. Led by some
+sudden, ungovernable impulse, they had both gone further than their
+slight acquaintance justified. Olva was convinced that he had made a
+fool of himself, that he had talked like a prig. Lawrence was groping
+hopelessly amongst a forest of dark thought for some little sensible
+thing that he might say. He found nothing and so relapsed, with false,
+uncomfortable easiness, into--
+
+"I say, old man, have a drink."
+
+The rest of that conversation concerned football.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE WATCHERS
+
+1
+
+He was running--running for his life. Behind stretched the long white
+road rising like a great bloated, warning finger out of the misty trees.
+Heavy cushions of grey cloud blotched the sky; through the mist ridges
+of ploughed field rose like bars.
+
+The dog, Bunker, was running beside him, his tongue out, body solid grey
+against the lighter, floating grey around. His feet pattered beside his
+master, but his body appeared to edge away and yet to be held by some
+compelling force.
+
+Olva was running, running. But not from Carfax. There in the wood it
+lay, the leg doubled under the body, the head hanging limply back. . . .
+But that was nought, no fear, no terror in that. It could not pursue,
+nor in its clumsy following, had it had such power, would there have
+been any horror. There was no sound in the world save his running and
+the patter of the dog's feet. Would the lights never come, those sullen
+streets and at last the grateful, welcome crowds?
+
+He could see one lamp, far ahead of him, flinging its light forward to
+help him. If he might only reach it before the pursuer caught him. Then,
+behind him, oh! so softly, so gently, with a dreadful certainty, it
+came. If he did but once look round, once behold that Shadow, his defeat
+was sure. He would sink down there upon the road, the mists would crowd
+upon him, and then the awful end. He began to call out, his breath came
+in staggering gasps, his feet faltered.
+
+"O, mercy, mercy--have mercy." He sank trembling to his knees.
+
+"Dune, Dune, wake up! What's the matter? You've been making the most
+awful shindy. Dune, Dune!"
+
+Slowly he came to himself. As his eyes caught the old familiar objects,
+the little diamond-paned window, the books, the smiling tenderness
+of "Aegidius," the last evening blaze lighting the room with golden
+splendour, he pulled himself together.
+
+He had been sitting, he remembered now, in the armchair by the fire.
+Craven had come to tea. They had had their meal, had talked pleasantly
+enough, and then Olva had felt this overpowering desire for sleep come
+down upon him. He knew the sensation of it well enough by now, for his
+nights had often been crowded with waking hours, and this drowsiness
+would attack him at any time--in hall, in chapel, in lecture. Sometimes
+he had struggled against it, but to-day it had been too strong for him.
+Craven's voice had grown fainter and fainter, the room had filled
+with mist. He had made one desperate struggle, had seen through his
+hall-closed eyes that Craven was looking at a magazine and blowing,
+lazily, clouds of smoke from his pipe . . . then he had known no more.
+
+Now, as he struggled to himself, he saw that Craven was standing over
+him, shaking him by the arm.
+
+"Hullo," he said stupidly, "I'm afraid I must have dropped off. I'm
+afraid you must have thought me most frightfully rude."
+
+Craven left him and went back to his chair.
+
+"No," he said, "that's all right--only you _did_ talk in the most
+extraordinary way."
+
+"Did I?" Olva looked at him gravely. "What did I say?"
+
+"Oh--I don't know--only you shouted a lot. You're overdone, aren't you?
+Been working too hard I expect." Then he added, slowly, "You were crying
+out about Carfax."
+
+There was a long pause. The clock ticked, the light slowly faded,
+leaving the room in shadow. Craven's voice was uncomfortable. He said at
+last--
+
+"You must have been thinking a lot about Carfax lately."
+
+"What did I say?" asked Olva again.
+
+"Oh, nothing." Craven turned his eyes away to the shadowy panes. "You
+were dreaming about a road--and something about a wood . . . and a
+matchbox."
+
+"I've been sleeping badly." Olva got up, filled his pipe and relit it.
+"I expect, although we don't say much about it, the Carfax business has
+got on all our nerves. You don't look yourself, Craven."
+
+He didn't. His careless, happy look had left him. Increasingly, every
+day, Olva seemed to see in him a likeness to his mother and sister. The
+eyes now were darker, the tines of the mouth were harder.
+
+Meanwhile so strong bad the dream's impression been that Olva could not
+yet disentangle it from his waking thoughts. He was in his room and yet
+the white road stretched out of it--somewhere there by the
+bookcase--oil through the mist into the heart of the dark wood.
+
+He had welcomed during these last days Craven's advances towards
+friendship, partly because he wanted friends now, and partly, he was
+beginning now to recognize, there was, in the back of his mind, the
+lingering memory of the kind eyes of Margaret Craven. He perceived, too,
+that here was sign enough of change in him--that he who had, from
+his earliest days, held himself proudly, sternly aloof from all human
+companionship save that of his father, should now, so readily and
+eagerly, greet it. Craven had been proud of him, eager to be with him,
+and had shown, in his artless opinions of men and things, the simplest,
+most innocent of characters.
+
+"Time to light up," said Olva. The room had grown very dark.
+
+"I must be going."
+
+Olva noticed at once that there was a new note in Craven's voice. The
+boy moved, restlessly, about the room.
+
+"I say," he brought out at last, laughing nervously, "don't go asleep
+when I'm in the room again. It gives one fits."
+
+Both men were conscious of some subtle, vague impression moving in the
+darkness between them.
+
+Olva answered gravely, "I've been sticking in at an old paper I've been
+working on--no use to anybody, and I've been neglecting my proper work
+for it, but it's absorbed me. That's what's given me such bad nights, I
+expect."
+
+"I shouldn't have thought," Craven answered slowly, "that anything ever
+upset you; I shouldn't have thought you had any nerves. And, in any
+case, I didn't know you had thought twice about the Carfax business."
+
+Olva turned on the electric light. At the same moment there was a loud
+knock on the door.
+
+Craven opened it, showing in the doorway a pale and flustered Bunning.
+Craven looked at him with a surprised stare, and then, calling out
+good-bye to Olva, walked off.
+
+Bunning stood hesitating, his great spectacles shining owl-like in the
+light.
+
+Dune didn't want him. He was, he reflected as he looked at him, the
+very last person whom he did want. And then Bunning had most irritating
+habits. There was that trick of his of pushing up his spectacles
+nervously higher on to his nose. He bad a silly shrill laugh, and he
+had that lack of tact that made him, when you had given him a shilling's
+worth of conversation and confidence, suppose that you had given him
+half-a-crown's worth and expect that you would very shortly give him
+five shillings' worth. He presumed on nothing at all, was confidential
+when he ought to have been silent, and gushing when he should simply
+have thanked you with a smile. Nothing, moreover, to look at. He had the
+kind of complexion that looks as though it would break into spots at the
+earliest opportunity. His clothes fitted him badly and were dusty at the
+knees; his hair was of no colour nor strength whatever, and he bit his
+nails. His eyes behind his spectacles were watery and restless, and
+his linen always looked as though it had been quite clean yesterday and
+would be quite filthy to-morrow.
+
+And yet Olva, as he looked at him seated awkwardly in a chair, was
+surprisingly, unexpectedly touched. The creature was so obviously
+sincere. It was indeed poor Bunning's only possible "leg," his ardour.
+He would willingly go to the stake for anything. It was the actual death
+and sacrifice that mattered---and Bunning's life was spent in marching,
+magnificently and wholeheartedly, to the sacrificial altars and then
+discovering that he had simply been asked to tea.
+
+Now it was evident that he wanted something from Olva. His tremulous
+eyes bad, as they gazed at Dune across the room, the dumb worship of a
+dog adoring its master.
+
+"I hear," he said in that husky voice that always sounded as though
+he were just swallowing the last crumbs of a piece of toast, "that you
+stopped Cardillac and the others coming round to my rooms the other
+night. I can't tell you how I feel about it."
+
+"Rot," said Olva brusquely. "If you were less of an ass they wouldn't
+want to come round to your rooms so often."
+
+"I know," said Bunning. "I am an awful ass." He pushed his spectacles up
+his nose. "Why did you stop them coming?" he asked.
+
+"Simply," said Olva, "because it seems to me that ten men on to one is a
+rotten poor game."
+
+"I don't know," said Bunning, still very husky, "If a man's a fool he
+gets rotted. That's natural enough. I've always been rotted all my life.
+I used to think it was because people didn't understand me--now I know
+that it really is because I am an ass."
+
+Strangely, suddenly, some of the burden that bad been upon Olva now for
+so long was lifted. The atmosphere of the room that had lain upon him
+so heavily was lighter--and he seemed to feel the gentle withdrawing of
+that pursuit that now, ever, night and day, sounded in his ears.
+
+And what, above all, had happened to him? He flung his mind back to a
+month ago. With what scorn then would he have glanced at Bunning's ugly
+body--with what impatience have listened to his pitiful confessions. Now
+he said gently--
+
+"Tell me about yourself."
+
+Bunning gulped and gripped the baggy knees of his trousers.
+
+"I'm very unhappy," he said at last desperately--"very. And if you
+hadn't come with me the other night to hear Med-Tetloe--I'm sure I
+don't know why you did--I shouldn't have come now---"
+
+"Well, what's the matter?"
+
+Bunning's mouth was full of toast. "It was that night--that service. I
+was very worked up and I went round afterwards to speak to him. I could
+see, you know, that it hadn't touched you at all. I could see that, and
+then when I went round to see him he hadn't got anything to say--nothing
+that I wanted--and--suddenly--then--at that moment--I felt it was all
+no good. It was you, you made me feel like that---"
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes. If you hadn't gone--like that--it would have been different. But
+when you--the last man in College to care about it-went and gave it its
+chance I thought that would prove it. And then when I went to him he was
+so silly, Med-Tetloe I mean. Oh! I can't describe it but it was just no
+use and I began to feel that it was all no good. I don't believe there
+is a God at all--it's all been wrong--I don't know what to do. I don't
+know where to go. I've been wretched for days, not sleeping or anything.
+And then they come and rag me--and--and--the Union men want me to take
+Cards round for a Prayer Meeting--and--and--I wouldn't, and they said.
+. . . Oh! I don't know, I don't know _what_ to do--I haven't got
+any-thing left!"
+
+And here, to Olva's intense dismay, the wretched creature burst into the
+most passionate and desperate tears, putting his great hands over his
+face, his whole body sobbing. It was desolation--the desolation of a
+human being who had clutched desperately at hope after hope, who had
+demanded urgently that he should be given something to live for and had
+had all things snatched from his hands.
+
+Olva, knowing what his own loneliness was, and the terror of it,
+understood. A fortnight ago he would have hated the scene, have sent
+Bunning, with a cutting word, flying from the room, never to return.
+
+"I say, Bunning, you mustn't carry on like this--you're overdone or
+something. Besides, I don't understand. What does it matter if you
+_have_ grown to distrust Med-Tetloe and all that crowd. They aren't the
+only people in the world--that isn't the only sort of religion."
+
+"It's all I had. I haven't got anything now. They don't want me at home.
+They don't want me here. I'm not clever. I can't do anything. . . . And
+now God's gone. . . . I think I'll drown myself."
+
+"Nonsense. You mustn't talk like that--God's never gone."
+
+Bunning dropped his hands, looked up, his face ridiculous with its
+tear-stains.
+
+"You think there's a God?"
+
+"I know there's a God."
+
+"Oh!" Bunning sighed.
+
+"But you mustn't take it from me, you know. You must think it out for
+yourself. Everybody has to."
+
+"Yes--but you matter--more to me than--any one."
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes." Bunning looked at the floor and began to speak very fast. "You've
+always seemed to me wonderful--so different from every one else. You
+always looked--so wonderful. I've always been like that, wanted my hero,
+and I haven't generally been able to speak to them--my heroes I mean. I
+never thought, of course, that I should speak to you. And then they
+sent me that day to you, and you came with me--it was so wonderful--I've
+thought of nothing else since. I don't think God would matter if you'd
+only let me come to see you sometimes and talk to you--like this."
+
+"Don't talk that sort of rot. Always glad to see you. Of course you may
+come in and talk if you wish."
+
+"Oh! you're so different--from what I thought. You always looked as
+though you despised everybody--and now you look--Oh! I don't know--but
+I'm afraid of you---"
+
+The wretched Bunning was swiftly regaining confidence. He was now, of
+course, about to plunge a great deal farther than was necessary and to
+burden Olva with sell-revelations and the rest.
+
+Olva hurriedly broke in--
+
+"Well, come and see me when you want to. I've got a lot of work to do
+before Hall. But we'll go for a walk one day. . . ."
+
+Bunning was at once flung back on to his timid self. He pushed his
+spectacles back, blushed, nearly tumbled over his chair as he got up,
+and backed confusedly out of the room.
+
+He tried to say something at the door--"I can't thank you enough. . ."
+he stuttered and was gone.
+
+As the door closed behind him, swiftly Olva was conscious again of the
+Pursuit. . . .
+
+He turned to the empty room--"Leave me alone," he whispered. "For pity's
+sake leave me alone."
+
+The silence that followed was filled with insistent, mysterious urgency.
+
+
+2
+
+Craven did not come that night to Hall. Galleon had asked him and Olva
+to breakfast-the next morning. He did not appear.
+
+About two o'clock in the afternoon a note was sent round to Olva's
+rooms. "I've been rather seedy. Just out for a long walk--do you mind my
+taking Bunker? Send word round to my rooms if you mind.--R. C." Craven
+had taken Bunker out for walks before and had grown fond of the dog.
+There was nothing in that. But Olva, as he stood in the middle of his
+room with the note in his hand, was frightened.
+
+The result of it was that about five o'clock on that afternoon Olva paid
+his second visit to the dark house in Rocket Road. His motives for going
+were confused, but he knew that at the back of them was a desire that he
+should find Margaret Craven, with her grave eyes, waiting for him in the
+musty little drawing-room, and that Mrs. Craven, that mysterious woman,
+should not be there. The hall, when the old servant had admitted him,
+once again seemed to enfold him in its darkness and heavy air with an
+almost active purpose. It breathed with an actual sound, almost with
+a melody . . . the "Valse Triste" of Sibelius, a favourite with Olva,
+seemed to him now to be humming its thin spiral note amongst the skins
+and Chinese weapons that covered the walls. The House seemed to come
+forward, on this second occasion, actively, personally. . . . His wish
+was gratified. Margaret Craven was alone in the dark, low-ceilinged
+drawing-room, standing, in her black dress, before the great deep
+fireplace, as though she had known that he would come and had been
+awaiting his arrival.
+
+"I know that you will excuse my mother," she said in her grave, quiet
+voice. "She is not very well. She will be sorry not to have seen you."
+Her hand was cool and strong, and, as he held it for an instant, he was
+strangely conscious that she, as well as the House, had moved into more
+intimate relation with him since their last meeting.
+
+They sat down and talked quietly, their voices sounding like low notes
+of music in the heavy room. He was conscious of rest in the repose of
+her figure, the pale outline of her face, the even voice, and above
+all the grave tenderness of her eyes. He was aware, too, that she was
+demanding from him something of the same kind; he divined that for her,
+too, life had been no easy thing since they last met and that she wanted
+now a little relief before she must return. He tried to give it her.
+
+All through their conversation he was still conscious in the dim rustle
+that any breeze made in the room of that thin melody that Sibelius once
+heard. . . .
+
+"I hope that Mrs. Craven is not seriously ill?
+
+"No. It is one of her headaches. Her nerves are very easily upset. There
+was a thunder-storm last night. . . . She has never been strong since
+father died."
+
+"You will tell her how sorry I am."
+
+"Thank you. She is wonderfully brave about it. She never complains--she
+suffers more than we know, I think. I don't think this house is good
+for her. Father died here and her bedroom now is the room where he died.
+That is not good for her, I'm sure. Rupert and I both are agreed
+about it, but we cannot get her to change her mind. She can be very
+determined."
+
+Yes--Olva, remembering her as she sat so sternly before the fire, knew
+that she could be determined.
+
+"And I am afraid that your brother isn't very well either."
+
+She looked at him with troubled eyes. "I am distressed about Rupert. He
+has taken this death of his friend so terribly to heart. I have never
+known him morbid about anything before. It is really strange because I
+don't think he was greatly attached to Mr. Carfax. There were things I
+know that he didn't like."
+
+"Yes. He doesn't look the kind of fellow who would let his mind dwell on
+things. He looks too healthy."
+
+"No. He came in to see us for an hour last night and sat there without a
+word. I played to him--he seemed not to hear it. And generally he cares
+for music."
+
+"I'm afraid"--their eyes met and Olva held hers until he had finished
+his sentence--"I'm afraid that it must seem a little lonely and gloomy
+for you here--in this house--after your years abroad."
+
+She looked away from him into the fire.
+
+"Yes," she said, speaking with sudden intensity. "I hate it. I have
+hated it always--this house, Cambridge, the life we lead here. I love
+my mother, but since I have been abroad something has happened to change
+her. There is no confidence between us now. And it is lonely because she
+speaks so little--I am afraid she is really very ill, but she refuses to
+see a doctor. . . ."
+
+Then her voice was softer again, and she leant forward a little towards
+him. "And I have told you this, Mr. Dune, because if you will you can
+help me--all of us. Do you know that she liked you immensely the other
+even big? I have never known her take to any one at once, so strongly.
+She told me afterwards that you had done her more good than fifty
+doctors--just your being there--so that if, sometimes, you could come
+and see her----"
+
+He did not know what it was that suddenly, at her words, brought the
+terror back to him. He saw Mrs. Craven so upright, so motionless,
+looking at him across the room--with recognition, with some implied
+claim. Why, he had spoken scarcely ten words to her. How could he
+possibly have been of any use to her? And then, afraid lest his
+momentary pause had been noticeable, he said eagerly---
+
+"It is very kind of Mrs. Craven to say that. Of course I will come
+if she really cares about it. I am not a man of many friends or many
+occupations. . . ."
+
+She broke in upon him--
+
+"You could be if you cared. I know, because Rupert has told me. They all
+think you wonderful, but you don't care. Don't throw away friends, Mr.
+Dune--one can be so lonely without them."
+
+Her voice shook a little and he was suddenly afraid that she was going
+to cry. He bent towards her.
+
+"I think, perhaps, we are alike in that, Miss Craven. We do not make our
+friends easily, but they mean a great deal to us when they come. Yes,
+I _am_ lonely and I _am_ a little tired of bearing my worries alone, in
+silence. Perhaps I can help you to stand this life a little better if I
+tell you that--mine is every bit as hard."
+
+She turned to him eyes that were filled with gratitude. Her whole
+body seemed to be touched with some new glow. Into the heart of their
+consciousness of the situation that had arisen between them there came,
+sharply, the sound of a shutting door. Then steps in the hall.
+
+"That's Rupert," she said.
+
+They both rose as he came into the room. He stood back in the shadow for
+a moment as though surprised at Olva's presence. Then he came forward
+very gravely.
+
+"I've found something of yours, Dune," he said. It lay, gleaming, in his
+hand. "Your matchbox."
+
+Dune drew a sharp breath. Then he took it and looked at it.
+
+"Where did you find it?"
+
+"In Saunet Wood. Bunker and I have been for a walk there. Bunker found
+it."
+
+As the three of them stood there, motionless, in the middle of the dark
+room, Olva caught, through the open door, the last sad fading breath of
+the "Valse Triste."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+TERROR
+
+1
+
+That night the cold fell, like a plague, upon the town. It came,
+sweeping across the long low flats, crisping the dark canals with white
+frosted ice, stiffening the thin reeds at the river's edge, taking each
+blade of grass and holding it in its iron hand and then leaving it an
+independent thing of cold and shining beauty. At last it blew in wild
+gales down the narrow streets, throwing the colour of those grey walls
+against a sky of the sharpest blue, making of each glittering star a
+frozen eye, carrying in its arms a round red sun that it might fasten
+it, like a frosted orange, against its hard blue canopy.
+
+Already now, at half-past two of the afternoon, there were signs of the
+early dusk. The blue was slowly being drained from the sky, and against
+the low horizon a faint golden shadow soon to burn into the heart of the
+cold blue, was hovering.
+
+Olva Dune, turning into the King's Parade, was conscious of crowds of
+people, of a gaiety and life that filled the air with sound. He checked
+sternly with a furious exercise of self-control his impulse to creep
+back into the narrow streets that he had just left.
+
+"It's an Idea," he repeated over and over, as he stood there. "It's an
+Idea. . . . You are like any one else--you are as you were . . . before
+. . . everything. There is no mark--no one knows."
+
+For it seemed to him that above him, around him, always before him and
+behind him there was a grey shadow, and that as men approached him this
+shadow, bending, whispered, and, as they came to him, they flung at him
+a frightened glance . . . and passed.
+
+If only he might take the arm of any one of those bright and careless
+young men and say to him, "I killed Carfax--thus and thus it was." Oh!
+the relief! the lifting of the weight! For then--and only then--this
+pursuing Shadow, so strangely grave, not cruel, but only relentless,
+would step back. Because that confession--how clearly he knew it!--was
+the thing that God demanded. So long as he kept silence he resisted
+the Pursuer--so long as he resisted the Pursuer he must fly, he must
+escape--first into Silence, then into Sound, then back again to Silence.
+Somewhere, behind his actual consciousness: there was the knowledge
+that, did he once yield himself, life would be well, but that yielding
+meant Confession, Renunciation, Devotion. It was not because it was
+Carfax that he had killed, but it was because it was God that had spoken
+to him, that he fled.
+
+A fortnight ago he would have been already defeated--the Pursuer should
+have caught him, bound him, done with him as he would. But now--in that
+same instant that young Craven had looked at him with challenge in his
+eyes, in that instant also he, Olva, had looked at Margaret.
+
+In that silence, yesterday evening, in the dark drawing-room the two
+facts had together leapt at him--he loved Margaret Craven, he was
+suspected by Rupert Craven. Love had thus, terribly, grimly, and yet so
+wonderfully, sprung into his heart that had never, until now, known its
+lightest touch. Because of it--because Margaret Craven must never know
+what he had done--he must fight Craven, must lie and twist and
+turn. . . . His soul must belong to Margaret Craven, not to this
+terrible, unperturbed, pursuing God.
+
+All night he had fought for control. A very little more and he would
+rush crying his secret to the whole world; slowly he had summoned calm
+back to him. Rupert Craven should be defeated; he would, quietly, visit
+Sannet Wood, face it in its naked fact, stand before it and examine
+it--and fight down once and for all this imagination of God.
+
+Those glances that men flung upon him, that sudden raising of the eyes
+to his face . . . a man greeted him, another man waved his hand always
+this same suspicion . . . the great grey shadow that bent and whispered
+in their ears.
+
+He saw, too, another picture. High above him some great power was
+seated, and down to earth there bent a mighty Hand. Into this Hand
+very gently, very tenderly, certain figures were drawn--Mrs. Craven,
+Margaret, Rupert, Bunning, even Lawrence. Olva was dragging with him,
+into the heart of some terrible climax, these so diverse persons; he
+could not escape now--other lives were twisted into the fabric of his
+own.
+
+And yet with this certainty of the futility of it, he must still
+struggle . . . to the very end.
+
+On that cold day the world seemed to stand, as men gather about a
+coursing match, with hard eyes and jeering faces to watch the hopeless
+flight. . . .
+
+
+2
+
+He fetched Banker from the stable where he was kept and set off along
+the hard white road. He had behaved very badly to Bunker, a but the dog
+showed no signs of delight at his release. On other days when he had
+been kept in his stable for a considerable time he had gone mad with joy
+and jumped at his master, wagging his whole body in excitement. Now he
+walked very slowly by Olva's side, a little way behind him; when
+Olva spoke to him he wagged his tail, but as though it were duty that
+impelled it.
+
+The air grew colder aid colder--slowly now there had stolen on to the
+heart of the blue sky white pinnacles of cloud--a dazzling whiteness,
+but catching, mysteriously, the shadow of the gold light that heralded
+the setting sun. These clouds were charged with snow; as they hung there
+they seemed to radiate from their depths an even more piercing coldness.
+They hung above Olva like a vast mountain range and had in their outline
+so sharp and real an existence that they were part of the hard black
+horizon, rising, immediately, out of the long, low, shivering flats.
+
+There was no sound in all the world; behind him, sharply, the Cambridge
+towers bit the sky--before him like a clenched hand was the little
+wood.
+
+The silence seemed to have a rhythm and voice of its own so that if one
+listened, quite clearly the tramp of a marching army came over the level
+ground. Always an army marching--and when suddenly a bird rose from the
+canal with a sharp cry the tramping was caught, with the bird, for an
+instant, into the air, and then when the cry was ended sank down again.
+The wood enlarged; it lay upon the cold land now like a man's head; a
+man with a cap. Spaces between the trees were eyes and it seemed that he
+was lying behind the rim of the world and leaning his head upon the edge
+of it and gazing. . . .
+
+Bunker suddenly stopped and looked up at his master.
+
+"Come on," Olva turned on to him sharply.
+
+The dog looked at him, pleading. Then in Olva's dark stern face he
+seemed to see that there was no relenting--that wood must be faced. He
+moved forward again, but slowly, reluctantly. All this nonsense that
+Lawrence had talked about Druids. We will soon see what to make of
+that. And yet, in the wood, it did seem as though there were something
+waiting. It was now no longer a man's head--only a dark, melancholy band
+of trees, dead black now against the high white clouds.
+
+There had risen in Olva the fighting spirit. Fear was still there,
+ghastly fear, but also an anger, a rage. Why should he be thus
+tormented? What had he done? Who was Carfax that the slaying of him
+should be so unforgettable a sin? Moreover, had it been the mere vulgar
+hauntings of remorse, terrors of a frightened conscience, he could
+have turned upon himself the contempt that any Dune must deserve for so
+ignoble a submission.
+
+But here there were other things--some-thing that no human resolution
+could combat. He seized then eagerly on the things that he could
+conquer--the suspicions of Rupert Craven, the rivalry of Cardillac,
+the confidences of Bunning, . . . the grave tenderness of Margaret
+Craven . . . these things he would clutch and hold, let the Pursuing
+Spirits do what they would.
+
+As he entered the dark wood a few flakes of snow were falling. He
+knew where the Druid Stones lay. He had once been shown them by some
+undergraduate interested in such things. They lay a little to the right,
+below the little crooked path and above the Hollow.
+
+The wood was not dripping now--held in the iron hand of the frost the
+very leaves on the ground seemed to be made of metal; the bare twisted
+branches of the trees shone with frosty--the earth crackled beneath his
+foot and in the wood's silence, when he broke a twig with his boot the
+sound shot into the air and rang against the listening stillness.
+
+He looked at the Hollow, Bunker close at his heels. He could see the
+spot where he had first stood, talking to Carfax--there where the ferns
+now glistened with silver. There was the place where Carfax had fallen.
+Bunker was smelling with his head down at the ground. What did the dog
+remember? What had Craven meant when he said that Bunker had found the
+matchbox?
+
+He stood silently looking down at the Hollow. In his heart now there was
+no terror. When, during these last days, he had been fighting his fear
+it had always seemed to him that the heart of it lay in this Hollow. He
+had always seen the dripping fern, smelt the wet earth, heard the sound
+of the mist falling from the trees. Now the earth was clear and hard and
+cold. The great white mountains drove higher into the sky, very softly
+and gently a few white flakes were falling.
+
+With a great relief, almost a sigh of thank-fulness, he turned back
+to the Druids' Stones. There they were--two of them standing upright,
+stained with lichen, grey and weather-beaten, one lying flat, hollowed
+a little in the centre. The ferns stood above them and the bare branches
+of the trees crossed in strange shapes against the sky.
+
+Here, too, there was a peaceful, restful silence. No more was God in
+these quiet stones than He had been in that noisy theatrical Revival
+Meeting--Lawrence was wrong. Those old religions were dead. No more
+could the Greek Gods pass smiling into the temples of their worshippers,
+no more Wodin, Thor and the rest may demand their bloody sacrifice.
+
+These old stones are dead. The Gods are dead--but God? . . .
+
+He stayed there for a while and the snow fell more heavily. The golden
+light had faded, the high white clouds had swallowed the blue. There
+would soon be storm.
+
+In the wood--strangest of ironies--there had been peace.
+
+Now he started down the road again and was conscious, as the wood
+slipped back into distance, of some vague alarm.
+
+
+3
+
+The world was now rapidly transformed. There had been promised a blaze
+of glory, but the sun, red and angry, had been drowned by the thick
+grey clouds that now flooded the air--dimly seen for an instant outlined
+against the grey--then suddenly non-existent, leaving a world like a
+piece of crumpled paper white and dark to all its boundaries.
+
+The snow fell now more swiftly but always gently, imperturbably--almost
+it might seem with the whispering intention of some important message.
+
+Olva was intensely cold. He buttoned his coat tightly up to his ears,
+but nevertheless the air was so biting that it hurt. Bunker, with his
+head down, drove against the snow that was coming now ever more thickly.
+
+The peace that there had been in the little wood was now utterly gone.
+The air seemed full of voices. They came with the snow, and as the
+flakes blew more closely against his face and coat there seemed to press
+about him a multitude of persons.
+
+He drove forward, but this sense of oppression increased with every
+step. The wood had been swallowed by the storm. Olva felt like a man who
+has long been struggling with some vice; insidiously the temptation has
+grown in force and power--his brain, once so active in the struggle, is
+now dimmed and dulled. His power of resistance, once so vigorous, is
+now confused--confusion grows to paralysis--he can only now stare,
+distressed, at the dark temptation, there have swept over him such
+strong waters that struggle is no longer of avail--one last clutch at
+the vice, one last desperate and hateful pleasure, and he is gone. . . .
+
+Olva knew that behind him in the storm the Pursuit was again upon him.
+That brief respite in the wood had not been long granted him. The
+snow choked him, blinded him, his body was desperately cold, his soul
+trembling with fear. On every side he was surrounded--the world had
+vanished, only the thin grey body of his dog, panting at his side, could
+be dimly seen.
+
+God had not been in the wood, but God was in the storm. . . .
+
+A last desperate resistance held him. He stayed where he was and shouted
+against the blinding snow.
+
+"There _is_ no God. . . . There _is_ no God."
+
+Suddenly his voice sank to a whisper. "There _is_ no God," he muttered.
+
+The dog was standing, his eyes wide with terror, his feet apart, his
+body quivering.
+
+Olva gazed into the storm. Then, desperately, he started to run. . . .
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+REVELATION OF BUNNING (I)
+
+1
+
+On that evening the College Debating Society exercised its mind over the
+question of Naval Defence.
+
+One gentleman, timid of voice, uncertain in wit, easily dismayed by
+the derisive laughter of the opposite party, asserted that "This House
+considers the Naval policy of the present Government fatal to the
+country's best interests." An eager politician, with a shrill voice
+and a torrent of words, denied this statement. The College, with the
+exception of certain gentlemen destined for the Church (they had been
+told by their parents to speak on every possible public occasion in
+order to be ready for a prospective pulpit), displayed a sublime and
+somnolent indifference. The four gentlemen on the paper had prepared
+their speeches beforehand and were armed with notes and a certain
+nervous fluency. For the rest, the question was but slightly assisted.
+The prospective members of the Church thought of many things to say
+until they rose to their feet when they could only remember "that the
+last gentleman's speech bad been the most preposterous thing they had
+ever had the pleasure of listening to--and that, er--er--the Navy was
+all right, and, er--if the gentleman who had spoken last but two
+thought it wasn't, well, all they--er--could say was that it reminded
+them--er--of a story they had once heard (here follows story without
+point, conclusion or brevity)--and--er--in fact the Navy was all right.
+. . ."
+
+The Debate, in short, was languishing when Dune and Cardillac entered
+the room together. Here was an amazing thing.
+
+It was well known that only last night Cardillac and Dune had both
+been proposed for the office of President of the Wolves. The Wolves, a
+society of twelve founded for the purpose of dining well and dressing
+beautifully, was by far the smartest thing that Saul's possessed. It was
+famous throughout the University for the noise and extravagance of its
+dinners, and you might not belong to it unless you had played for the
+University on at least one occasion in some game or another and unless,
+be it understood, you were, in yourself, quite immensely desirable.
+Towards the end of every Christmas term a President for the ensuing year
+was elected; he must be a second year man, and it was considered by
+the whole college that this was the highest honour that the gods could
+possibly, during your stay at Cambridge, confer upon you. Even the
+members of the Christian Union, horrified though they were by the amount
+of wine that was drunk on dining occasions and the consequent peril
+to their own goods and chattels, bowed to the shining splendour of the
+fortunate hero. It had never yet been known that a President of the
+Wolves should also be a member of the Christian Union, but one must
+never despair, and nets, the most attractive and genial of nets, were
+flung to catch the great man.
+
+On the present occasion it had been generally understood that Cardillac
+would be elected without any possible opposition. Dune had not for a
+moment occurred to any one. He had; during his first term, when his
+football prowess had passed, swinging through the University, been
+elected to the Wolves, but he had only attended one dinner and had then
+remained severely and unpleasantly sober. There was no other possible
+rival to Cardillac, to his distinction, his power of witty and malicious
+after-dinner speaking, his wonderful clothes, his admirable football,
+his haughty indifference. He would of course be elected.
+
+And then, some three weeks ago, this wonderful, unexpected development
+of Olva Dune had startled the world. His football, his sudden geniality
+(he had been seen, it was asserted, at one of Med-Tetloe's revival
+meetings with, of all people in the world, Bunning), his air of being
+able to do anything whatever if he wished to exert himself, here was
+a character indeed--so wonderful that it was felt, even by the most
+patriotic of Saulines, that he ought, in reality, to have belonged to
+St. Martin's.
+
+It became at once, of course, a case of rivalry between Dune and
+Cardillac, and it was confidently expected that Dune would be victorious
+in every part of the field.
+
+Cardillac had reigned for a considerable period and there were many men
+to whom he had been exceedingly offensive. Dune, although he admitted no
+one to closer intimacy, was offensive never. If, moreover, you had seen
+him play the other day against the Harlequins, you could but fall down
+on your knees and worship. Here, too, he rivalled Cardillac. Tester,
+Buchan, and Whymper were quite certain of their places in the University
+side--Whymper because he was the greatest three-quarter that Cambridge
+had had for many seasons, and Tester and Buchan because they had been at
+Fettes together and Buchan had played inside right to Tester's outside
+since the very tenderest age; they therefore understood one another
+backward. There remained then only this fourth place, and Cardillac
+seemed certain enough . . . until Dune's revival. And now it depended
+on Whymper. He would choose, of the two men, the one who suited him the
+better. Cardillac had played with him more than had Dune. Cardillac
+was safe, steady, reliable. Dune was uncertain, capricious, suddenly
+indifferent. On the other hand not Whymper himself could rival the
+brilliance of Dune's game against the Harlequins. That was in a place by
+itself--let him play like that at Queen's Club in December and no Oxford
+defence could stop him.
+
+So it was argued, so discussed. Certain, at any rate, that Dune's
+recrudescence threatened the ruin of Cardillac's two dearest ambitions,
+and Cardillac did not easily either forget or forgive.
+
+And yet behold them now, gravely, the gaze of the entire company,
+entering together, sitting together by the fire, watching with serious
+eyes the clumsy efforts of an unhappily ambitious Freshman to make
+clear his opinions of the Navy, the Government and the British Islands
+generally--only, ultimately, producing a tittering, stammering apology
+for having burdened so long with his hapless clamour, the Debate.
+
+
+2
+
+Olva liked Cardillac--Cardillac liked Olva. They both in their attitude
+to College affairs saw beyond the College gates into the wide and bright
+world. Cardillac, when it had seemed that no danger could threaten
+either his election to the Wolves or the acquisition of his Football
+Blue, had regarded both honours quietly and with indifference. It amazed
+him now when both these Prizes were seriously threatened that he should
+still appreciate and even seek out Dune's company.
+
+Had it been any other man in the College he would have been a very
+active enemy, but here was the one man who had that larger air, that
+finer style whose gravity was beautiful, whose soul was beyond Wolves
+and Rugby football, whose future in the real world promised to be of a
+fine and highly ordered kind. Cardillac wished eagerly that these things
+might yet be his, but if he were to be beaten, then, of all men in the
+world, let it be by Dune. In his own scant, cynical estimate of his
+fellow-beings Dune alone demanded a wide and appreciative attention.
+
+To Olva on this evening it mattered but little where he was or what he
+did. The snow had ceased to fall, and now, under a starry sky, lay white
+and glistening clear; but still with him storm seemed to hover, its snow
+beating his body, its fury yieling him no respite.
+
+And now there was no longer any doubt. He faced it with the most
+matter-of-fact self-possession of which he was capable. Some-thing was
+waiting for his surrender. He figured it, sitting quietly back in the
+reading-room, listening to the Debate, watching the faces around him, as
+the tracing of some one who was dearly loved. There was nothing stranger
+in it all than his own certainty that the Power that pursued him was
+tender. And here he crossed the division between the Real and the
+Unreal, because his present consciousness of this Power was as actual as
+his consciousness of the chairs and tables that filled the reading-room.
+That was the essential thing that made the supreme gulf between himself
+and his companions. It was not because he had murdered Carfax but
+because he was now absolutely conscious of God that he was so alone. He
+could not touch his human companions, he could scarcely see them. It was
+through this isolation that God was driving him to confession. Now, in
+the outer Court, huge against the white dazzling snow, the great shadow
+was hovering, its head piercing the stars, its arms outstretched.
+Let him surrender and at once there would be infinite peace, but with
+surrender must come submission, confession . . . with confession he must
+lose the one thing that he desired--Margaret Craven . . . that he might
+go and talk to her, watch her, listen to her voice. Meanwhile he must
+not think. If he allowed his brain, for an instant, to rest, it was
+flooded with the sweeping consciousness of the Presence--always he must
+be doing something, his football, his companions, and often at the end
+of it all, calmly, quietly, betrayed--hearing above all the clatter that
+he might make the gentle accents of that Voice. He remembered that peace
+that he had had in St. Martin's Chapel on the day of the discovery of
+the body. What he would give to reclaim that now!
+
+Meanwhile he must battle; must quiet Craven's suspicions, must play
+football, join company with men who seemed to him now like shadows.
+As he glanced round at them--at Lawrence, Bunning, Galleon
+Cardillac--they seemed to have far less existence than the grey shadow
+in the outer Court. Sounds passed him like smoke--the lights grew faint
+in his eyes . . . he was being drawn out into a world that was all of
+ice--black ice stretching to every horizon; on the edge of it, vast
+against the night sky, was the Grey Figure, waiting.
+
+"Come to Me. Tell Me that you will follow Me. I spoke to you in the
+wood. You have broken My law. . . ."
+
+"Lot of piffle," he heard Cardillac's voice from a great distance.
+"These freshers are always gassing." The electric light, seen through a
+cloud of tobacco smoke, came slowly back to him, dull globes of colour.
+
+"It's so hot--I'm cutting," he whispered to Cardillac, and slipped out
+of the room.
+
+He climbed to his room, flung back his door and saw that his light was
+turned on.
+
+Facing him, waiting for him, was Bunning.
+
+
+3
+
+"If you don't want me----" he began with his inane giggle.
+
+"Sit down." Olva pulled out the whisky and two siphons of soda. "If I
+didn't want you I'd say so."
+
+He filled himself a strong glass of whisky and soda and began feverishly
+to drink.
+
+Bunning sat down.
+
+"Don't be such a blooming fool. Take off your gown if you're going to
+stop."
+
+Bunning meekly took off his gown. His spectacles seemed so large that
+they swallowed up the rest of his face; the spectacles and the enormous
+flat-toed boots were the principal features of Bunning's attire. He sat
+down again and gazed at Olva with the eyes of a devoted dog. Olva
+looked at him. Over Bunning's red wrists the brown ends of a Jaeger vest
+protruded from under the shirt.
+
+"I say, why don't you dress properly?"
+
+"I don't know---" began Bunning.
+
+"Well, the sleeves of your vest needn't come down like that. It looks
+horribly dirty. Turn 'em up."
+
+Bunning, blushing almost to tears, turned them back.
+
+"There's no need to make yourself worse than you are, you know," Olva
+finished his whisky and poured out some more. "Why do you come
+here? . . . I'm always beastly to you."
+
+"As long as you let me come--I don't mind how beastly you are."
+
+"But what do you get from it?"
+
+Bunning looked down at his huge boots.
+
+"Everything. But it isn't that--it is that, without being here, I
+haven't got anything else."
+
+"Well, you needn't wear such boots as that--and your shirts and things
+aren't clean. . . . You don't mind my telling you, do you?"
+
+"No, I like it, Nobody's ever told me."
+
+Here obviously was a new claim for intimacy and this Olva hurriedly
+disavowed.
+
+"Oh! It's only for your own good, you know. Fellows will like you better
+if you're decently dressed. Why hasn't any one ever told you?"
+
+"They'd given me up at home." Bunning heaved a great sigh.
+
+"Why? Who are your people?"
+
+"My father's a parson in Yorkshire. They're all clergymen in my
+family--uncles, cousins, everybody--my elder brother. I was to have been
+a clergyman."
+
+"_Was_ to have been? Aren't you going to be one now?"
+
+"No--not since I met you."
+
+"Oh, but you mustn't take such a step on my account. I don't want to
+prevent you. I've nothing to do with it. I should think you'd make a
+very good parson."
+
+Olva was brutal. He felt that in Bunning's moist devoted eyes there was
+a dim pain. But he was brutal because his whole soul revolted against
+sentimentality, not at all because his soul revolted against Bunning.
+
+"No, I shouldn't make a good parson. I never wanted to be one really.
+But when your house is full of it, as our house was, you're driven. When
+it wasn't relations it was all sorts of people in the parish--helpers
+and workers--women mostly. I hated them."
+
+Here was a real note of passion! Bunning seemed, for an instant, to be
+quite vigorous.
+
+"That's why I'm so untidy now," Bunning went desperately on; "nobody
+cared how I looked. I was stupid at school, my reports were awful, and
+I was a day boy. It is very bad for any one to be a day boy--very!" he
+added reflectively, as though he were recalling scenes and incidents.
+
+"Yes?" said Olva encouragingly. He was being drawn by Bunning's artless
+narration away from the Shadow. It was still there, its arm outstretched
+above the snowy court, but Bunning seemed, in some odd way, to
+intervene.
+
+"I always wanted to find God in those days. It sounds a stupid thing
+to say, but they used to speak about Him--mother and the rest--just as
+though He lived down the street. They knew all about Him and I used to
+wonder why I didn't know too. But I didn't. It wasn't real to me. I used
+to make myself think that it was, but it wasn't."
+
+"Why didn't you talk to your mother about it?--
+
+"I did. But they were always too busy with missions and things. And then
+there was my elder brother. _He_ understood about God and went to all
+the Bible meetings and things, and he was always so neat-never dirty--I
+used to wonder how he did it . . . always so neat."
+
+Bunning took off his great spectacles and wiped them with a very dirty
+handkerchief.
+
+"And had you no friends?"
+
+"None--nobody. I didn't want them after a bit. I was afraid of
+everybody. I used to go down all the side-streets between school and
+home for fear lest I should meet some one. I was always very nervous as
+a boy--very. I still am."
+
+"Nervous of people?"
+
+"Yes, of everybody. And of things, too--things. I still am. You'd
+be surprised. . . . It's odd because none of the other Bunnings are
+nervous. I used to have fancies about God."
+
+"What sort of fancies?"
+
+"I used to see Him when I was in bed like a great big shadow, all up
+against the wall. A grey shadow with his head ever so high. That's how I
+used to think of Him. I expect that all sounds nonsense to you."
+
+"No, not at all!" said Olva.
+
+"I think they thought me nearly an idiot at home--not sane at all. But
+they didn't think of me very often. They used to apologise for me when
+people came to tea. I wasn't clever, of course--that's why they thought
+I'd make a good parson."
+
+He paused--then very nervously he went on. "But now I've met you I
+shan't be. Nothing can make me. I've always watched you. I used to look
+at you in chapel. You're just as different from me as any one can be,
+and that's why you're like God to me. I don't want you to be decent to
+me. I think I'd rather you weren't. But I like to come in sometimes and
+hear you say that I'm dirty and untidy. That shows that you've noticed."
+
+"But I'm not at all the sort of person to make a hero of," Olva said
+hurriedly. "I don't want you to feel like that about we. That's all
+sentimentality. You mustn't feel like that about anybody. You must stand
+on your own legs."
+
+"I never have," said Burning, very solemnly, "and I never will. I've
+always had somebody to make a hero of. I would love to die for you, I
+would really. It's the only sort of thing that I can do, because I'm not
+clever. I know you think me very stupid."
+
+"Yes, I do," said Olva, "and you mustn't talk like a schoolgirl. If
+we're friends and I let you come in here, you mustn't let your vest come
+over your cuffs and you must take those spots off your waistcoat, and
+brush your hair and clean your nails, and you must just be sensible and
+have a little humour. Why don't you play football?"
+
+"I can't play games, I'm very shortsighted."
+
+"Well, you must take some sort of exercise. Run round Parker's Piece or
+something, or go and run at Fenner's. You'll get so fat."
+
+"I _am_ getting fat. I don't think it matters much what I look like."
+
+"It matters what every one looks like. And now you'd better cut. I've
+got to go out and see a man."
+
+Burning submissively rose. He said no more but bundled out of the door
+in his usual untidy fashion. Olva came after him and banged his "oak"
+behind him. In Outer Court, looking now so vast and solemn in the
+silence of its snow, Bunning, stopping, pointed to the grey buildings
+that towered over them.
+
+"It was against a wall like that that I used to imagine God--on a night
+like this--you'll think that very silly." He hurriedly added, "There's
+Marshall coming. I know he'll be at me about those Christian Union
+Cards. Good-night." He vanished.
+
+But it was not Marshall. It was Rupert Craven. The boy was walking
+hurriedly, his eyes on the ground. He was suddenly conscious of some
+one and looked up. The change in him was extraordinary. His eyes had
+the heavy, dazed look of one who has not slept for weeks. His face was
+a yellow white, his hair unbrushed, and his mouth moved restlessly. He
+started when he saw Olva.
+
+"Hallo, Craven. You're looking seedy. What's the matter?"
+
+"Nothing, thanks. . . . Good-night."
+
+"No, but wait a minute. Come up to my rooms and have some coffee. I
+haven't seen you for days."
+
+A fortnight ago Craven would have accepted with joy. Now he shook his
+head.
+
+"No, thanks. I'm tired: I haven't been sleeping very well."
+
+"Why's that? Overwork?"
+
+"No, it's nothing. I don't know why it is."
+
+"You ought to see somebody. I know what not sleeping means."
+
+"Why? . . . Are _you_ sleeping badly?" Craven's eyes met Olva's.
+
+"No, I'm splendid, thanks. But I had a bout of insomnia years ago. I
+shan't forget it."
+
+"You _look_ all right." Cravan's eyes were busily searching Olva's face.
+Then suddenly they dropped.
+
+"I'm all right," he said hurriedly. "Tired, that's all."
+
+"Why do you never come and see me now?"
+
+"Oh, I will come--sometime. I'm busy."
+
+"What about?"
+
+Olva stood, a stern dark figure, against the snow.
+
+"Oh, just busy." Craven suddenly looked up as though he were going to
+ask Olva a question. Then he apparently changed his mind, muttered a
+good-night and disappeared round the corner of the building.
+
+Olva was alone in the Court. From some room came the sound of voices and
+laughter, from some other room a piano--some one called a name in Little
+Court. A sheet of stars drew the white light from the snow to heaven.
+
+Olva turned very slowly and entered his black stairway.
+
+In his heart he was crying, "How long can I stand this? Another day?
+Another hour? This loneliness. . . . I must break it. I must tell some
+one. I _must_ tell some one."
+
+As he entered his room he thought that he saw against the farther wall
+an old gilt mirror and in the light of it a dark figure facing him; a
+voice, heavy with some great overburdening sorrow, spoke to him.
+
+"How terrible a thing it is to be alone with God!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+REVELATION OF BUNNING (II)
+
+1
+
+The next day the frost broke, and after a practice game on the Saul's
+ground, in preparation for a rugby match at the end of the week, Olva,
+bathed and feeling physically a fine, overwhelming fitness, went to see
+Margaret Craven.
+
+This sense of his physical well-being was extraordinary. Mentally he
+was nearly beaten, almost at the limit of his endurance. Spiritually the
+catastrophe hovered more closely above him at every advancing moment,
+but, physically, he had never, in all his life before, felt such
+magnificent health. He had been sleeping badly now for weeks. He had
+been eating very little, but he felt no weariness, no faintness. It
+was as though his body were urging upon him the importance of his
+resistance, as though he were perceiving, too, with unmistakable
+clearness the cleavage that there was between body and soul. And indeed
+this vigour _did_ give him an energy to set about the numberless things
+that he had arranged to fill every moment of his day--the many little
+tinkling bells that he had set going to hide the urgent whisper of that
+other voice. He carried his day through with a rush, a whirl, so that
+he might be in bed again at night almost before he had finished his
+dressing in the morning--no pause, no opportunity for silence. . . .
+
+And now he must see Margaret Craven, see her for herself, but also see
+her to talk to her about her brother. How much did Rupert Craven know?
+How much--and here was the one tremendous question--had he told his
+sister? As Olva waited, once again, in the musty hall, saw once more the
+dim red glass of the distant window, smelt again the scent of oranges,
+his heart was beating so that he could not hear the old woman's
+trembling voice. How would Margaret receive him? Would there be in her
+eyes that shadow of distrust that he always saw now in Rupert's? His
+knees were trembling and he had to stay for an instant and pull himself
+together before he crossed the drawing-room threshold.
+
+And then he was, instantly, reassured. Margaret was alone in the dim
+room, and as she came to meet him he saw in her approach to him that
+she had been wanting him. In her extended hands he found a welcome that
+implied also a need. He felt, as he met her and greeted her and looked
+again into the grave, tender eyes that he had been wanting so badly ever
+since he had seen them last, that there was nothing more wonderful than
+the way that their relationship advanced between every meeting. They
+met, exchanged a word or two and parted, but in the days that separated
+them their spirits seemed to leap together, to crowd into lonely hours a
+communion that bound them more closely than any physical intimacy could
+do.
+
+"Oh! I'm so glad you've come. I had hoped it, wanted it."
+
+He sat down close to her, his dark eyes on her face.
+
+"You're in trouble? I can see."
+
+She bent her eyes gravely on the fire, and as slowly she tried to put
+together the things that she wished to say he felt, in her earnest
+thoughtfulness, a rest, a relief, so wonderful that it was like plunging
+his body into cool water after a long and arid journey.
+
+"No, it is nothing. I don't want to make things more overwhelming than
+they are. Only, it is, I think, simply that during these last days when
+mother and Rupert have both been ill, I have been overwhelmed."
+
+"Rupert?"
+
+"Yes, we'll come to him in a moment. You must remember," she smiled up
+at him as she said it, "that I'm not the least the kind of person who
+makes the best of things--in fact I'm not a useful person at all. I
+suppose being abroad so long with my music spoiled me, but whatever it
+is I seem unable to wrestle with things. They frighten me, overwhelm me,
+as I say . . . I'm frightened now."
+
+He looked up at her last word and caught a corner reflection in the old
+gilt mirror--a reflection of a multitude of little things; silver boxes,
+photograph frames, old china pots, little silk squares, lying like
+scattered treasures from a wreck on a dark sea.
+
+"What are you frightened about?"
+
+"Well, there it is--nothing I suppose. Only I'm not good at managing
+sick people, especially when there's nothing definitely the matter with
+them. It's a case with all three of us--a case of nerves."
+
+"Well, that's as serious a thing as any other disease."
+
+"Yes, but I don't know what to do with it. Mother lies there all day.
+She seldom speaks, she scarcely eats anything. She entirely refuses to
+have a doctor. But worse than that is the extraordinary feeling that
+she has had during this last week about Rupert. She refuses to see him,"
+Margaret Craven finally brought out.
+
+"Refuses?"
+
+"Yes, she says that he is altered to her. She says that he will not let
+her alone, that he is imagining things. Poor Rupert is most terribly
+distressed. He is imagining nothing. He would do anything for her, he is
+devoted to her."
+
+"Since when has she had this idea?"
+
+"You remember the day that you came last? when Rupert came in and had
+found your matchbox. It began about then. . . . Of course Rupert has
+not been well--he has never been well since that dreadful death of Mr.
+Carfax, and certainly since that day when you were here I think that
+he's been worse--strange, utterly unlike himself, sleeping badly, eating
+nothing. Poor, poor Rupert, I would do anything for him, for them
+both, but I am so utterly, utterly useless, What can I do?" she finally
+appealed to him.
+
+"You said once," he answered her slowly, "that I could help you. If you
+still feel that, tell me, and I will do anything, anything. You know
+that I will do anything."
+
+They came together, in that terrible room, like two children out of the
+dark. He suddenly caught her hand and she let him hold it. Then, very
+gently, she withdrew it.
+
+"I think that you can make all the difference," she answered slowly.
+"Mother often speaks of you. I told you before that she wants so much to
+see you, and if you would do that, if you would go up, for just a little
+time, and sit with her, I believe you would soothe her as no one else
+can. I don't know why I feel that, but I know that she feels it too. You
+_are_ restful," she said suddenly, with a smile, flung up at him.
+
+And again, as on the earlier occasion, he shrank from the thing that she
+asked him. He had felt, from the very moment this afternoon that he had
+entered the house, that that thing would be asked of him. Mrs. Craven
+wanted him. He could feel the compulsion of her wish drawing him through
+walls and floors and all the obstructions of the world.
+
+"Of course I'll go," he said.
+
+"Ah! that will help. It would be so good of you. Poor mother, it's
+lonely for her up there all day, and I know that she thinks about
+things, about father, and it's not good for her. You might perhaps say
+a word too about Rupert. I cannot imagine what it is that she is feeling
+about him." She paused, and then with a sigh, rising from their chair,
+longingly brought out, "Oh! but for all of us! to get away--out of this
+house, out of this place, that's the thing we want!"
+
+She stood there in her black dress, so simply, so appealingly before
+him, that it was all that he could do not to catch her in his arms and
+bold her. He did indeed rise and stand beside her, and there in silence,
+with the dim room about them, the oppressive silence so ominous
+and sinister, they came together with a closeness that no earlier
+intercourse had given them.
+
+Olva seemed, for a short space, to be relieved from his burdens. For
+them both, so young, so helpless against powers that were ruthless in
+the accomplishment of wider destinies, they were allowed to find in
+these silent minutes a brief reprieve.
+
+Then, with the sudden whirring and shrill clatter of an ancient clock,
+action began again, but before the striking hour had entirely died away,
+he said to her, "Whatever happens, we are, at any rate, friends. We can
+snatch a moment together even out of the worst catastrophe."
+
+"You're afraid . . . ?" Her breath caught, as she flung a look about the
+room.
+
+"One never knows."
+
+"It is all so strange. There in Dresden everything was so happy, so
+undisturbed, the music and one's friends; it was all so natural. And
+now--here--with Rupert and mother--it's like walking in one's sleep."
+
+"Well, I'll walk with you," he assured her.
+
+But indeed that was exactly what it _was_ like, he thought, as he
+climbed the old and creaking stairs. How often had one dreamed of the
+old dark house, the dusty latticed windows, the stairs with the gaping
+boards, at last that thin dark passage into which doors so dimly opened,
+that had black chasms at either end of it, whose very shadows seemed
+to demand the dripping of some distant water and the shudder of some
+trembling blind. In a dream too there was that sense of inevitability,
+of treading unaccustomed ways with an assured, accustomed tread that
+was with him now. The old woman who had conducted him stopped at a door,
+hidden by the dusk, and knocked. She opened it and wheezed out--
+
+"Mr. Dune, m'am;" and then, standing back for him to pass, left him
+inside.
+
+As the door closed he was instantly conscious of an overwhelming desire
+for air, a longing to fling open the little diamond-paned window. The
+ceiling was very low and a fierce fire burned in the fireplace. There
+was little furniture, only a huge white bed hovered in the background.
+Olva was conscious of a dark figure lying on a low chair by the fire, a
+figure that gave you instantly those long white hands and those burning
+eyes and gave you afterwards more slowly the rest of the outline. But
+its supreme quality was its immobility. That head, that body, those
+hands, never moved, only behind its dark outline the bright fire
+crackled and flung its shadows upon the wall.
+
+"I am sorry that you are not so well."
+
+Mrs. Craven's dark eyes searched his face. "You are restful to me. I
+like you to come. But I would not intrude upon your time."
+
+Olva said, "I am very glad to come if I can be of any service. If there
+is anything that I can do."
+
+The eyes seemed the only part of her body that lived. It was the eyes
+that spoke. "No, there is nothing that any one can do. I do not care for
+talking. Soon I will be downstairs again, I hope. It is lonely for my
+daughter."
+
+"There is Rupert."
+
+At the mention of the name her eyes were suddenly sheathed. It was like
+the instant quenching of some light. She did not answer him.
+
+"Tell me about yourself. What you do, what you care about . . . your
+life."
+
+He told her a little about his home, his father, but he had a strange,
+overwhelming conviction that she already knew. He felt, also, that she
+regarded these things that he told her as preliminaries to something
+else that he would presently say. He paused.
+
+"Yes?" she said.
+
+"I am tiring you. I have talked enough. It is time for me to be back in
+College."
+
+She did not contradict him. She watched him as he said good-bye. For
+one moment he touched her chill, unresponsive hand, for an instant their
+eyes, dark, sombre, met. The thought flew to his brain, "My God, how
+lonely she is . . ." and then, "My God, how lonely I am." Slowly and
+quietly he closed the door behind him.
+
+
+2
+
+That night the Shadow was nearer, more insistent; the closer it came
+the more completely was the real world obscured. This obscurity was now
+shutting oil from him everything; it was exactly as though his whole
+body bad been struck numb so that he might touch, might hold, but
+could feel nothing. Again it was as though he were confined in a damp,
+underground cell and the world above his head was crying out with life
+and joy. In his hand was the key of the door; he had only to use it.
+
+Submission--to be taken into those arms, to be told gently what he
+must do, and then--Obedience--perhaps public confession, perhaps death,
+struggling, ignominious death . . . at least, never again Margaret
+Craven, never again her companionship, her understanding, never again
+to help her and to feel that warm sure clasp of her hand. What would she
+say, what would she do if she were told? That remained for him now the
+one abiding question. But he could not doubt what she would do. He saw
+the warmth fading from the eyes, the hard stern lines settling about the
+mouth, the cold stiffening of her whole body. No, she must never know,
+and if Rupert discovered the truth, he, Olva, must force him, for his
+sister's sake, to keep silence. But if Rupert knew he would tell his
+sister, and she would believe him. No use denials then.
+
+And on the side of it all was the Shadow, with him now, with him in the
+room.
+
+          All things betray Thee Who betrayest Me.
+
+The line from some poem came to him. It was true, true. His life that
+had been the life of a man was now the life of a Liar--Liar to his
+friends, Liar to Margaret, Liar to all the world--so his shuddering
+soul cowered there, naked, creeping into the uttermost corner to escape
+the Presence.
+
+If only for an hour he might be again himself---might shout aloud the
+truth, boast of it, triumph in it, be naked in the glory of it. Day
+by day the pressure had been increased, day by day his loneliness had
+grown, day by day the pursuit had drawn closer.
+
+And now he hardly recognized the real from the false. He paced his room
+frantically. He felt that on the other side of the bedroom door there
+was terror. He had turned on all his lights; a furious fire was blazing
+in the grate; beyond the windows cold stars and an icy moon, but in here
+stifling heat.
+
+When Bunning (the clocks were striking eleven) came blinking in upon him
+he was muttering--"Let me go, let me go. I killed him, I tell you. I'm
+glad I killed him. . . . Oh! Let me alone! For pity's sake let me alone!
+I _can't_ confess! Don't you see that I can't confess? There's Margaret.
+I must keep her---afterwards when she knows me better I'll tell her."
+
+As he faced Bunning's staring glasses, the thought came to Him, "Am I
+going mad?--Has it been too much for me?---Mad?"
+
+He stopped, wheeled round, caught the table with both hands, and leaned
+over to Bunning, who stood, his mouth open, his cap and gown still on.
+
+Olva very gravely said: "Come in, Bunning. Shut the door. 'Sport' it.
+That's right. Take off your gown and sit down."
+
+The man, still staring, white and frightened, sat down.
+
+Olva spoke slowly and very distinctly: "I'm glad you've come. I want to
+talk to you. I killed Carfax, you know." As he said the words he began
+slowly to come back to himself from the Other World to this one. How
+often, sleeping, waking, had he said those words! How often, aloud, in
+his room, with his door locked, had he almost shouted them!
+
+He was not now altogether sure whether Bunning were really there or no.
+His spectacles were there, his boots were there, but was Bunning there?
+If he were not there. . . .
+
+But he _was_ there. Olva's brain slowly cleared and, for the first time
+for many weeks, he was entirely himself. It was the first moment of
+peace that he had known since that hour in St. Martin's Chapel.
+
+He was quiet, collected, perfectly calm. He went over to the window,
+opened it, and rejoiced in the breeze. The room seemed suddenly empty.
+Five minutes ago it had been crowded, breathless. There was now only
+Bunning.
+
+"It was so awfully hot with that enormous fire," he said.
+
+Bunning's condition was peculiar. He sat, his large fat face white and
+streaky, beads of perspiration on his forehead, his hands gripping the
+sides of the armchair. His boots stuck up in the most absurd manner,
+like interrogation marks. He watched Olva's face fearfully. At last he
+gasped--
+
+"I say, Dune, you're ill. You are really--you're overdone. You ought to
+see some one, you know. You ought really, you ought to go to bed." His
+words came in jerks.
+
+Olva crossed the room and stood looking down upon him.
+
+"No, Bunning, I'm perfectly well. . . . There's nothing the matter with
+me. My nerves have been a bit tried lately by this business, keeping it
+all alone, and it's a great relief to me to have told you."
+
+The fact forced itself upon Bunning's brain. At last in a husky whisper:
+"You . . . killed . . . Carfax?" And then the favourite expression of
+such weak souls as he: "Oh! my God! Oh! my God!"
+
+"Now look here, don't get hysterical about it. You've got to take it
+quietly as I do. You said the other day you'd do anything for me. . . .
+Well, now you've got a chance of proving your devotion."
+
+"My God! My God!" The boots feebly tapped the floor.
+
+"I had to tell somebody. It was getting on my nerves. I suppose it gives
+you a kind of horror of me. Don't mind saying so if it does."
+
+Bunning, taking out a grimy handkerchief, wiped his forehead. He shook
+his head without speaking.
+
+Olva sat down in the chair opposite him and lit his pipe.
+
+"I want to tell somebody all about it. You weren't really, I suppose,
+the best person to tell. You're a hysterical sort of fellow and you're
+easily frightened, but you happened to come in just when I was rather
+worked up about it. At any rate you've got to face it now and you must
+pull yourself together as well as you can. . . . Move away from the
+fire, if you're hot."
+
+Bunning shook his head.
+
+Olva continued: "I'm going to try to put it quite plainly to you, the
+Carfax part of it I mean. There are other things that have happened
+since that I needn't bother you with, but I'd like you to understand why
+I did it."
+
+"Oh! my God!" said Bunning. He was trembling from head to foot and his
+fat hands rattled on the woodwork of the chair and his feet rattled on
+the floor.
+
+"I met Carfax first at my private school---a little, fat dirty boy he
+was then, and fat and dirty he's been ever since. I hated him, but I was
+always pleasant to him. He wasn't worth being angry with. He always did
+rotten things. He knew more filthy things than the other boys, and he
+was a bully--a beastly bully. I think he knew that I bated him, but we
+were on perfectly good terms. I think he was always a little afraid
+of me, but it's curious to remember that we never had a quarrel of any
+kind, until the day when I killed him."
+
+Olva paused and asked Bunning to have a drink. Bunning, gazing at him
+with desperate eyes, shook his head.
+
+"Then we went on to Rugby together. It's odd how Fate has apparently
+been determined to hammer out our paths side by side. Carfax grew more
+and more beastly. He always did the filthiest things and yet out of
+it all seemed to the world at large a perfectly decent fellow. He was
+clever in that way. I am not trying to defend myself. I'm making it
+perfectly straightforward and just as it really was. He knew that I knew
+him better than anybody, and as we went on at Rugby I think that his
+fear of me grew. I didn't hate him so much for being Carfax, but rather
+as standing for all sorts of rotten things. It didn't matter to me in
+the least whether he was a beast or not, I'm a beast myself, but it did
+matter that he should smile about it and have damp hands. When I touched
+his hand I always wanted to hit him.
+
+"I've got a very sudden temper, all my family are like that--calm
+most of the time and then absolutely wild. I hated him more up here
+at College than I'd hated him at school. He developed and still his
+reputation was just the same, decent fellows like Craven followed him,
+excused him; he had that cheery manner. . . . Hating him became a habit
+with me. I hated everything that he did--his rolling walk down the
+Court, his red colour, his football . . . and then he ruined that fellow
+Thompson. That was a poor game, but no one seemed to think anything of
+it . . . and indeed he and I seemed to be very good friends. He used to
+sneer at me behind my back, I know, but I didn't mind that. Any one's
+at liberty to sneer if they like. But he was really afraid of me . . .
+always.
+
+"Then at last there was this girl that he set about destroying. He
+seduced her, promised her marriage. I knew all about it, because she
+used to be rather a friend of mine. I warned her, but she was absolutely
+infatuated--wouldn't hear of anything that I had to say, thought it all
+jealousy. She wasn't the kind of girl who could stand disgrace. . . .
+She came to him one day and told him that she was going to have a baby.
+He laughed at her in the regular old conventional way . . . and that
+very afternoon, after he had seen her, he met me--there in Sannet Wood.
+
+"He began to boast about it, told me jokingly about the way that he'd
+'shut her mouth,' as he called it . . . laughed . . . I hit him. I meant
+to hit him hard, I hated him so; I think that I wanted to kill him.
+All the accumulated years were in that blow, I suppose; at any rate, I
+caught him on the chin and it broke his neck and he dropped . . . that's
+all."
+
+Olva paused, finished his drink, and ended with--
+
+"There it is--it's simple enough. I'm not in the least sorry I killed
+him. I've no regrets; he was better out of the world than in it, and
+I've probably saved a number of people from a great deal of misery. I
+thought at first that I should be caught, but they aren't very sharp
+round here and there was really nothing to connect me with it. But there
+were other things--there's more in killing a man than the mere killing.
+I haven't been able to stand the loneliness---so I told you."
+
+The last words brought him back to Bunning, a person whom he had almost
+forgotten. A sudden pity for the man's distress made his voice tender.
+"I say, Running, I oughtn't to have told you. It's been too much for
+you. But if you knew the relief that it is to me. . . . Though, mind
+you, if it's on your conscience, if it burdens you, you must 'out' with
+it. Don't have any scruples about me. But it needn't burden you. _You_
+hadn't any-thing to do with it. You were here and I told you. That's
+all. I've shown you that I want you as a friend."
+
+For answer the creature burst suddenly into tears, hiding his face
+in his sleeve, as small boys hide their faces, and choking out
+desperately--
+
+"Oh! my God! Oh! my God!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CRAVEN
+
+1
+
+That evening Olva was elected President of the Wolves. It was a ceremony
+conducted with closed doors and much drinking of wine, by a committee
+of four and the last reigning President who had the casting vote. The
+College waited in suspense and at eleven o'clock it was understood that
+Dune had been elected.
+
+According to custom, on the day following in "Hall" Olva would be
+cheered by the assembled undergraduates whilst the gods on the dais
+smiled gently and murmured that "boys will be boys."
+
+Meanwhile the question that agitated the Sauline world was the way that
+Cardillac would take it. "If it had been any one else but Dune . . ."
+but it couldn't have been any one else. There was no other possible
+rival, and "Cards," like the rest of the world, bowed to Dune's charm.
+The Dublin match, to be played now in a fortnight's time, would settle
+the football question. It was generally expected that they would try
+Dune in that match and judge him finally then on his play. There was a
+good deal of betting on the matter, and those who remembered his earlier
+games said that nothing could ever make Dune a reliable player and that
+it was a reliable player that was wanted.
+
+When Olva came into "Hall" that evening he was conscious of two pairs
+of eyes, Craven's and Bunning's. On either side of the high vaulted hall
+the tables were ranged, and men, shouting, waving their glasses, lined
+the benches. Olva's place was at the end farthest from the door and
+nearest the High Table, and he had therefore the whole room to cross.
+He was smiling a little, a faint colour in his cheeks. At his own end of
+the table Craven was standing, silent, with his eyes gravely fixed upon
+Olva's face. Half-way down the hall there was Bunning, and Olva could
+see, as he passed up the room, that the man was trembling and was
+pressing his hands down upon the table to hold his body still.
+
+When Olva had sat down and the cheering had passed again into the
+cheerful hum that was customary, the first voice that greeted him was
+Cardillac's.
+
+"Congratulations, old man. I'm delighted."
+
+There was no question of Cardillac's sincerity. Craven was sitting four
+places lower down; he had turned the other way and was talking eagerly
+to some man on his farther side--but the eyes that had met Olva's two
+minutes before had been hostile.
+
+Cardillac went on: "Come in to coffee afterwards, Dune; several men are
+coming in."
+
+Olva thanked him and said that he would. The world was waiting to see
+how "Cards" would take it, and, beyond question, "Cards" was taking it
+very well. Indeed an observer might have noticed that "Cards" was too
+absorbed by the way that Dune was "taking it" to "take it" himself
+consciously at all. Olva's aloof surveying of the world about him, as a
+man on a hill surveys the town in the valley, made of "Cards'" last year
+and a half a gaudy and noisy thing. He had thought that his attitude had
+been nicely adjusted, but now he saw that there were still heights to be
+reached--perhaps in this welcome that he was giving to Dune's success
+he might attain his position. . . . Not, in any way, a bad fellow, this
+Cardillac--but obsessed by a self-conscious conviction that the world
+was looking at him; the world never looks for more than an instant at
+self-consciousness, but it dearly loves self-forgetfulness, for that
+implies a compliment to itself.
+
+Afterwards, in Cardillac's handsome and over-careful rooms, there was
+an attempt at depth. The set--Lawrence, Galleon, Craven and five or six
+more--never thought about Life unless drink drove them to do so, and
+drink drove them to-night. A long, thin man, Williamson by name, with a
+half-Blue for racquets and a pensive manner, had a favourite formula on
+these occasions: "But think of a rabbit now . . ." only conveying by the
+remark that here was a proof of God's supreme, astounding carelessness.
+"You shoot it, you know, without turning a hair (no joke, you rotter),
+and it breeds millions a week . . . and--does it think about it, that's
+what I want to know? Where's its soul?
+
+"Hasn't got a soul. . . ."
+
+"Well, what _is_ the soul, anyway?"
+
+There you are-the thing's properly started, and the more the set drinks
+the vaguer it gets until finally it goes happily to bed and wakes with a
+headache and a healthy opinion that "Religion and that sort of stuff is
+rot" in the morning. That is precisely as far as intellect ever ventured
+in Saul's. There may have been quaint obscure fellows who sported their
+oaks every night and talked cleverly on ginger-beer, but they were
+not admitted as part of the scheme of things. . . . Saulines, to quote
+Lawrence, "are _not_ clever."
+
+They were not especially clever to-night, thought Olva, as he sat in the
+shadow away from the light of the fire and watched them sitting back in
+enormous armchairs, with their legs stretched out, blowing wreaths of
+smoke into the air, drinking whiskies and sodas . . . no, not clever.
+
+Craven, the shadows blacker than ever under his eyes, was on the
+opposite side of the room from Olva. He sat with his head down and was
+silent.
+
+"Think of a rabbit now," said Williamson.
+
+"I suppose," said Galleon, who was not gifted, "that they're happy
+enough."
+
+"Yes, but what do they _make_ of it all?"
+
+At this moment Craven suddenly burst in with "Where's Carfax?"
+
+This question was felt by every one to be tactless. Elaborately,
+with great care and some considerable effort, Carfax had been
+forgotten--forgotten, it seemed, by every one save Craven. He had been
+forgotten because his death did not belong to the Cambridge order of
+things, because it raised unpleasant ideas, and made one morbid and
+neurotic. It had, in fact, nothing in common with cold baths, marmalade,
+rugby football, and musical comedy.
+
+On the present occasion the remark was especially unpleasant because
+Craven had made it in so odd a manner. During the last few weeks it
+had been very generally noticed that Craven had not been himself--so
+pleasant and healthy a fellow he had always been, but now this Carfax
+business was too much for him. "Look out for young Craven" had been the
+general warning, implied if not expressed. Persons who threatened to be
+unusual were always marked down in Cambridge.
+
+And now Craven _had_ been unusual--"Where's Carfax?" . . . What a
+dreadful thing to say and how tactless! The note, moreover, in Craven's
+voice sounded a danger. There was something in the air as though the
+fellow might, at any moment, burst into tears, fire a pistol into the
+air, or jump out of the window! So unpleasant, and Carfax was much more
+real, even now, than an abstract rabbit.
+
+"Dear boy," said Cardillac, easily, "Carfax is dead. We all miss him--it
+was a beastly, horrible affair, but there's no point in dwelling on
+things; one only gets morbid, and morbidity isn't what we're here for."
+
+"It's all very well," Craven was angrily muttering, "but it's scandalous
+the way you forget a man. Here he was, amongst the whole lot of you,
+only a month or so ago and he was a friend of every one's. And then some
+brute kills him--he's done for--and you don't care a damn . . . it's
+beastly--it makes one sick."
+
+"Where do _you_ think he is, Craven?" Olva asked quietly from his
+shadowy corner.
+
+Craven flung up his head. "Perhaps _you_ can tell us," he cried. There
+was such hostility in his voice that the whole room was startled. Poor
+Craven! He really was very unwell. The sight of his tired eyes and white
+cheeks, the shadow of his hand quivering on his knee--here were
+signs that all was not as it should be. Gone, now, at any rate, any
+possibility of a comfortable evening. Craven said no more but still sat
+there with his head banging, his only movement the shaking of his hand.
+
+Cardillac tried to bring ease back again, Williamson once more started
+his rabbits, but now there was danger in that direction. Conversation
+fell, heavily, helplessly, to the ground. Some man got up to go and some
+one else followed him. It was the wrong moment for departure for they
+had drunk enough to make it desirable to drink more, but to escape from
+that white face of Craven's was the thing--out into the air.
+
+At last Craven himself got up. "I must be off," he said heavily.
+
+"So must I," Olva said, coming forward from his corner. Craven flung him
+a frightened glance and then passed stumbling out of the door.
+
+Olva caught him up at the bottom of the dark stairs. He put a hand on
+Craven's trembling arm and held him there.
+
+"I want to talk to you, Craven. Come up to my room."
+
+Craven tried to wrench his arm away. "No, I'm tired. I want to go to
+bed."
+
+"You haven't been near me for weeks. Why?"
+
+"Oh, nothing--let me go. I'll come up another time."
+
+"No, I _must_ talk to you--now. Come." Olva's voice was stern--his face
+white and hard.
+
+"No--I won't."
+
+"You must. I won't keep you long. I have something to tell you."
+
+Craven suddenly ceased to struggle. He gazed straight into Olva's eyes,
+and the look that he gave him was the strangest thing--something of
+terror, something of anger, a great wonder, and even--strangest of
+all!--a struggling affection.
+
+"I'll come," he said.
+
+In Olva's room he stood, a disturbed figure facing the imperturbability
+of the other man with restless eyes and hands that moved up and down
+against his coat. Olva commanded the situation, with stern eyes he
+seemed to be the accuser. . . .
+
+"Sit down--fill a pipe."
+
+"No, I won't sit--what do you want?"
+
+"Please sit. It's so much easier for us both to talk. I can't say the
+things that I want to when you're standing over me. Please sit down."
+
+Craven sat down.
+
+Olva faced him. "Now look here, Craven, a little time ago you came and
+wished that we should see a good deal of one another. You came in here
+often and you took me to see your people. You were charming . . . I was
+delighted to be with you."
+
+Olva paused--Craven said nothing.
+
+"Then suddenly, for no reason that I can understand, this changed. Do
+you remember that afternoon when you had tea with me here and I went to
+sleep? It was after that--you were never the same after that. And it has
+been growing worse. Now you avoid me altogether--you don't speak to me
+if you can help it. I'm not a man of many friends and I don't wish to
+lose one without knowing first what it is that I have done. Will you
+tell me what it is?"
+
+Craven made no answer. His eyes passed restlessly up and down the room
+as though searching for some way of escape. He made little choking
+noises in his throat. When Olva had had no answer to his question, he
+went gravely on--
+
+"But it isn't only your attitude to me that matters, although I _do_
+want you to explain that. But I want you also to tell me what the damage
+is. You're most awfully unwell. You're an utterly different man--changed
+entirely during the last week or two, and we've all noticed it. But
+it doesn't only worry us here; it worries your mother and sister too.
+You've no right to keep it to yourself."
+
+"There's nothing the matter."
+
+"Of course there is. A man doesn't alter in a day for nothing, and I
+date it all from that evening when you had tea with me, and I can't help
+feeling that it's something that I can clear up. If it _is_ anything
+that I can do, if I can clear your bother up in any way, you have only
+to tell me. And," he added slowly, "I think at least that you owe me an
+explanation of your own personal avoidance of me. No man has any right
+to drop a friend without giving his reasons. You know that, Craven."
+
+Craven suddenly raised his weary eyes. "I never was a friend of yours.
+We were acquaintances--that's all."
+
+"You made me a friend of your mother and sister. I demand an
+explanation, Craven."
+
+"There is no explanation. I'm not well--out of condition."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Why is a fellow ever out of condition? I've been working too hard, I
+suppose. . . . But you said you'd got something to tell me. What have
+you got to tell me?"
+
+"Tell me first what is troubling you."
+
+"No."
+
+"You refuse?"
+
+"Absolutely."
+
+"Then I have nothing to tell you."
+
+"Then you brought me in here on a lie. I should never have come if---"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"If I hadn't thought you had something to tell me."
+
+"What should I have to tell you?"
+
+"I don't know . . . nothing."
+
+There was a pause, and then with a sudden surprising force, Craven
+almost appealed--
+
+"Dune, you _can_ help me. You can make a great difference. I _am_
+ill; it's quite true. I'm not myself a bit and I'm tortured by
+imaginations--awful things. I suppose Carfax has got on my nerves and
+I've had absurd fancies. You _can_ help me if you'll just answer me one
+question--only one. I don't want to know anything else, I'll never
+ask you anything else--only this. Where were you on the afternoon that
+Carfax was murdered?"
+
+He brought it out at last, his hands gripping the sides of his chair,
+all the agonized uncertainty of the last few weeks in his voice. Olva
+faced him, standing above him, and looking down upon him.
+
+"My dear Craven--what an odd question--why do you want to know?"
+
+"Well, finding your matchbox like that--there in Sannet Wood--and I know
+you must have lost it just about then because I remember your looking
+for it here. I thought that perhaps you might have seen somebody, had
+some kind of suspicion. . . ."
+
+"Well, I _was_, as a matter of fact, there that very afternoon. I walked
+through the wood with Bunker--rather late. I met no one during the whole
+of the time."
+
+"No one?"
+
+"No one."
+
+"You have no suspicion?"
+
+"No suspicion."
+
+The boy relapsed from his eagerness into his heavy dreary indifference.
+His lips were working. Olva seemed to catch the words--"Why should it be
+I? Why should it be I?" Olva came over to him and placed his hand on his
+shoulder.
+
+"Look here, old man, I don't know what's the matter with you, but it's
+plain enough that you've got this Carfax business on your nerves--drop
+it. It does no good--it's the worst thing in the world to brood about.
+Carfax is dead--if I could help you to find his murderer I would--but I
+can't."
+
+Craven's whole body was trembling under Olva's hand. Olva moved back to
+his chair.
+
+"Craven, listen to me. You _must_ listen to me." Then, speaking very
+slowly he brought out-"I _have_ a right to speak to you--a great right.
+I wish to marry your sister."
+
+Craven started up from his chair.
+
+"No, no," he cried. "You! Never, so long as I can prevent it."
+
+"You have no right to say that," Olva answered him sternly, "until you
+have given me your reasons. I don't know that she cares a pin about
+me--I don't suppose that she does. But she will. I'm going to do my very
+best to marry her."
+
+Craven broke away to the middle of the room. His body was shaking with
+passion and he flung out his hand as though to ward off Olva from him.
+
+"You to marry my sister! My God, I will prevent it--I will tell her--"
+He caught himself up suddenly.
+
+"What will you tell her?"
+
+Then Craven collapsed. He stood there, rocking on his feet, his hands
+covering his face.
+
+"It's all too awful," he moaned. "It's all too awful."
+
+For a wonderful moment Olva felt that he was about to tell Craven
+everything. A flood of words rose to his lips--he seemed, for an
+instant, to be rising with a great joyous freedom, as did Christian when
+he had dropped his burden, to a new honesty, a high deliverance.
+
+Then he remembered Margaret Craven.
+
+"You take my advice, Craven, and get your nerves straight. They're in a
+shocking condition."
+
+Craven went to the door and turned.
+
+"You can tell nothing?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"I will never rest until I know who murdered Carfax."
+
+He closed the door behind him and was gone.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+FIFTH OF NOVEMBER
+
+1
+
+That attempt to make Craven speak his mind was Olva's last plunge into
+the open. He saw now, with a clarity that was like the sudden lifting of
+some blind before a lighted window, that he had been beguiled, betrayed.
+He had thought that his confession to Bunning would stay the pursuit. He
+saw now that it was the Pursuer Himself who had instigated it. With that
+confession the grey shadow had drawn nearer, had made one degree more
+certain the ultimate capitulation.
+
+For Bunning was surely the last person to be told--with every hour that
+became clearer. There were now about four weeks before the end of term.
+The Dublin match was to be on the first Tuesday of December, two days
+before every one went down, and between the two dates--this 5th of
+November and that 2nd of December--the position must be held. . . .
+
+The terror of the irresistible impulse now never left Olva. He had told
+Bunning in a moment of uncontrol--what might he not do now at any time?
+At one instant to be absolutely silent seemed the only resource, at the
+next to rush out and take part in all the life about him. Were he silent
+he was tortured by the silence, if he flung himself amongst his fellow
+men every hour threatened self-betrayal.
+
+What, moreover, was happening in the house in Rocket Road? Craven was
+only waiting for certainty and at any moment some chance might give him
+what he needed. What did Mrs. Craven know?
+
+Margaret . . . Margaret . . . Margaret---Olva took the thought of
+her in his hand and held it like a sword, against the forces that were
+crowding in upon him.
+
+The afternoon of November 5 was thick with fog so that the shops were
+lighted early and every room was dim and unreal, and a sulphurous smell
+weighted the air. After "Hall" Olva came back to his room and found
+Bunning, his white face peering out of the foggy mist like a dull moon
+from clouds, waiting for him. All day there had hung about Olva heavy
+depression. It had seemed so ugly and sinister a world--the fog had been
+crowded with faces and terror, and the dreadful overpowering impression
+of unreality that had been increasing with every day now took from
+his companions all life and made of them grinning masks. He remembered
+Margaret's cry, "It is like walking in a dream," and echoed it. Surely
+it _was_ a dream! He would wake one happy morning and find that he had
+invited Craven and Carfax to breakfast, and he would hear them, whilst
+he dressed, talking together in the outer room, and, later, he would
+pass Bunning in the Court without knowing him. He would be introduced
+one day to Margaret Craven and find the house in which she lived a
+charming comfortable place, full of light and air, with a croquet lawn
+at the back of it, and Mrs. Craven, a nice ordinary middle-aged woman,
+stout possibly and fond of gossip. And instead of being President of the
+Wolves and a person of importance in the College he would be once again
+his old self, knowing nobody, scornful of the whole world and of the
+next world as well. And this brought him up with a terrible awakening.
+No, that old reality could never be real again, for that old reality
+meant a world without God. God had come and had turned the world into
+a nightmare . . . or was it only his rebellion against God that had so
+made it? But the nightmare was there, the awful uncertainty of every
+word, of every step, because with the slightest movement he might
+provoke the shadow to new action, if anything so grave, so stern, so
+silent as that Pursuit could be termed action, and . . . it was odd how
+certainly he knew it . . . so kind. Bunning's face brought him to the
+sudden necessity of treating the nightmare as reality, for the moment at
+any rate. The staring spectacles piteously appealed to him--
+
+"I can't stand it--I can't stand it."
+
+"Hush!" Olva held his hand, and out of the fog, below in the Court, a
+voice was calling--"Craven! Craven! Buck up, you old ass!"
+
+"They're going to light bonfires and things," Bunning quavered, and
+then, with a hand that had always before seemed soft and flabby but
+that was now hard and burning, he caught Olva's wrist. "I had to see
+you--I've been three days now--waiting--all the time for them to come
+and arrest you. Oh! I've imagined everything--everything--and the fog
+makes it worse. . . . Oh! my God! I can't stand it."
+
+The man was on the edge of hysteria. His senseless giggle threatened
+that in another instant it would be beyond all control. There was no
+time to be lost. Olva took him by the shoulders, held him firmly and
+looked straight into the weak, quivering eyes that were behind the
+glasses like fish in a tank.
+
+"Look here, Bunning. Pull yourself together. You _must_--you _must_.
+Do you understand? If you've never done it before you must do it now.
+Remember that you wanted to help me. Well, now you can do it--but
+remember that if you give way so that people notice you, then the show's
+up. They'll be asking questions--they'll watch you--and you'll have
+done for me. Otherwise there's no risk whatever--no risk whatever. Just
+remember that--it's as though I'd never done anything; everything's
+going on in its usual way; life will always be just the same . . . if
+you'll keep hold of yourself--do you understand? Do you hear me?"
+
+Bunning's quavering voice answered him, "I'll try."
+
+"Well, look here. Think of it quite calmly, naturally. You're taking
+it like a story that you'd read in a magazine or a play you'd seen at a
+theatre--melodrama with all the lights on and every one screaming. Well,
+it can be like that if you want it. Every one thinks of murder that way
+and you can go shrieking to the Dean and have the rope round my neck in
+a minute. But I want you to think of it as the most ordinary thing
+in the world. Remember no one knows but yourself, and they won't know
+either if you behave in a natural sort of way." Then suddenly his voice
+sank to a growl and he caught the man's hands in his and held the whole
+quivering body in his control--"Quiet!" he muttered, "Quiet!"
+
+Bunning had begun to laugh--quite helplessly, almost noiselessly--only
+his fat cheeks were quivering and his mouth foolishly, weakly smiling:
+his eyes seemed to be disconnected from his body and to be protesting
+against it. They looked out like a prisoner from behind barred windows.
+The body began to shake from head to foot-ripples of noiseless laughter
+shook his fat limbs, then suddenly he began . . . peal upon peal. . .
+the tears came rolling down, the mouth was loosely trembling, and still
+only the eyes, in a kind of sad, stupid wonder, protested.
+
+Olva seized his throat-"Stop it, you damned fool!" . . . He looked
+straight into the eyes--Bunning ceased as suddenly as he had begun. The
+horrible, helpless noise fell with a giggle into silence; he collapsed
+into a chair and hid his face in his hands.
+
+There was a long pause. Olva gazed at the bending figure, summoning all
+his will power to hold the shaking thing in control. He waited. Then,
+softly, he began again. "Bunning, I did you a great wrong when I told
+you--you're not up to it."
+
+From behind the hands there came a muffled voice--"I _am_ up to it."
+
+"This sort of thing makes it impossible."
+
+"It shall never happen again." Bunning lifted his tear-stained face.
+"It's been coming for days. I've been so dreadfully frightened. But
+now--that I've been with you--it's better, much better. If only--" and
+his voice caught--"if only--no one suspects."
+
+Olva gravely answered, "No one suspects."
+
+"If I thought that any one--that there was any chance--that any one had
+an idea. . . ."
+
+Craven's voice was echoing in Olva's ears. He answered again--
+
+"No one has the slightest suspicion."
+
+Bunning got up heavily from the chair--"I shall be better now. It's been
+so awful having a secret. I never could keep one. I always used to do
+wrong things at home and then tell them and then get punished. But I
+will try. But if I thought that they guessed--" There was a rap on the
+door and Bunning gasped, stepped back against the wall, his face white,
+his knees trembling.
+
+"Don't be such a fool," Olva said fiercely. "If you're like that every
+time any one knocks you may as well chuck it at once. Look sensible,
+man. Pull yourself together."
+
+Lawrence entered, bringing log with him from the stairs. His big,
+thick-set body was so reassuring, so healthy in its sturdiness, so
+strange a contrast to the trembling figure against the wall that Olva
+felt an immense relief.
+
+"You know Bunning, Lawrence?"
+
+"How do?"
+
+Lawrence gripped Bunning's fingers, nodded to Bunning's stumbling words
+and smiled genially.
+
+Bunning got to the door, blinked upon them both from behind his glasses
+and was gone--muttering something about "work . . . letters to write."
+
+"Rum feller," said Lawrence, and dismissed him with a chuckle.
+"Shouldn't ever have thought him your style, Dune . . . but you're a
+clever feller and clever fellers always see more in stupid fellers than
+ordinary fellers do . . . come out and see the rag."
+
+"Rag! What rag?"
+
+"It's November 5th."
+
+So it was. In the air already perhaps there were those mysterious
+signs and portents that heralded riot--nothing, as yet, for the casual
+observer to notice, nothing but a few undergraduates arm-in-arm pacing
+the sleepy streets--a policeman here, a policeman there. Every now and
+again clocks strike the quarters, and in many common-rooms heads are
+nodding over ancient Port and argument of the gentlest kind is being
+tossed to and fro. But, nevertheless, we remember other Fifths of
+November. There was that occasion in '98, that other more distant time
+in '93. . . . There was that furious battle in the Market Place when the
+Town Hall was nearly set on fire and a policeman had his arm broken.
+
+These are historic occasions; on the other hand the fateful date has
+passed, often enough, without the merest flinging of a squib or friendly
+appropriation of the genial policeman's helmet.
+
+No one can say, no one knows, whether there will be riot to-night or no.
+Most of the young gentlemen now parading the K.P. and Petty Cury would
+undoubtedly prefer that there should be a riot. For one thing there has
+been no riot during the last five or six years--no one "up" just now
+has had any experience of such a thing, and it would be beyond question
+delightful to taste the excitement of it. But, on the other hand, there
+is all the difficulty of getting under way. One cannot possibly enjoy
+the occasion until one has reached that delightful point when one has
+lost all sense of risk, when recklessly we pile the bonfire, snap our
+fingers in the nose of poor Mr. Gregg who is terrific enough when he
+marches solemnly into Chapel but is nothing at all when he is screaming
+with shrill anger amongst the lights and fury of the blazing common.
+
+Will this wonderful moment when discipline, respect for authority,
+thoughts of home, terrors of being sent down, all these bogies, are
+flung derisively to the winds arrive to-night? It has struck nine, and
+to Olva and Lawrence, walking solemnly through the market-place, it all
+seems quiet enough.
+
+But behold how the gods work their will! It so happens that Giles of St
+Martin's has occasion, on this very day, to celebrate his twenty-first
+birthday. It has been done as a twenty-first birthday should be done,
+and by nine o'clock the company, twenty in number, have decided that
+"it was the ruddiest of ruddy old worlds"--that--"let's have
+some moretodrink ol' man--it was Fifth o' November--and that a
+ruddyoldbonfire would be--a--ruddyol'-joke---"
+
+Now, at half-past nine, the company of twenty march singing down the
+K.P. and gather unto themselves others--a murmur is spreading through
+the byways. "Bonfire on the Common." "Bonfire on the Common." The
+streets begin to be black with undergraduates.
+
+
+2
+
+Olva was conscious as he passed with Lawrence through the now crowded
+streets that Bunning's hysteria had had an effect upon his nerves. He
+could not define it more directly than by saying that the Shadow
+that had, during these many weeks, appeared to be pursuing him, at a
+distance, now seemed to be actually with him. It was as though three of
+them, and not two, were walking there side by side. It was as though he
+were himself whispering in his own ear some advice of urgent pleading
+that he was himself rejecting . . . he was even weighted with the sense
+of some enlarged growth, of having in fact to carry more, physically
+as well as spiritually, than he had ever carried before. Now it quite
+definitely and audibly pleaded--
+
+"Submit--submit--submit. . . . See the tangle that you are getting
+yourself into. See the trouble that you are getting others into. See
+the tangle and muddle that you are making of it all. . . . Submit. . . .
+Give in. . . . You're beaten."
+
+But he was not beaten. Neither the love of Margaret, nor the suspicions
+of Rupert, nor the hysteria of Bunning had as yet defeated him . . . and
+even as he resisted it was as though he were fighting himself.
+
+Sidney Street was now quite black with thronging undergraduates moving
+towards the Common. There was very little noise in it all; every now
+and again some voice would call aloud to some other voice and would be
+answered back; a murmur like the swelling of some stream, unlike, in its
+uniformity and curious evenness of note, any human conversation, seemed
+to cling to the old grey walls. All of it at present orderly enough but
+with sinister omen in its very quiet.
+
+Olva felt an increasing excitement as he moved. It was an excitement
+that had some basis in the stir that was about him, in the murmur like
+bees of the crowd, in the soft stirring of grey branches above the walls
+of the street against the night sky, in the golden lights that, set in
+dim towers, shone high up above their heads. In all these things there
+was a mysterious tremor that beat, with the rhythm of a pulse, from the
+town's very heart--but there was more than that in his excitement. There
+was working in him a conviction that he was now, even now, reaching the
+very climax of his adventure. Very certainly, very surely, the moment
+was thawing near, and even in the instant when he had, that very
+evening, left his rooms, he had stepped, he instinctively knew, out of
+one stage into another.
+
+"Where are we going?" he asked Lawrence.
+
+"Common. There's goin' to be an old fire. Hope there's a row--don't mind
+who I hit."
+
+The side streets that led to the Common made progress more difficult,
+and, with the increased difficulty, came also a more riotous spirit.
+Some one started "The Two Obadiahs," and it was lustily sung with a
+good deal of repetition; several people had wooden rattles, intended
+to encourage College boats during the races, but very useful just now.
+There were, at the point where the street plunges into the Common, some
+wooden turnstiles, and these of course were immensely in the way and men
+were flung about and there was a good deal of coarse pleasantry, and
+one mild freshman, who had been caught into the crowd by accident, was
+thrown on to the ground and very nearly trodden to death.
+
+The sight of the vast and mysterious Common put every one into the best
+of spirits. There was room here to do anything, and it was also dark
+enough and wide enough to escape if escape were advisable. Moreover
+the space of it seemed so limitless that it negatived any one's
+responsibility. A sudden delightful activity swept over the world, and
+it was immediately every one's business to get wood from anywhere at
+all and drag it into the middle of the Common. As they moved through the
+turnstiles Olva fancied that he caught sight of Craven.
+
+On the Common's edge, with bright little lights in their windows, were
+perched a number of tiny houses with strips of garden in front of them.
+These little eyes watched, apprehensively no doubt, the shadowy mass
+that hovered under the night sky. They did not like this kind of thing,
+these little houses--they remembered five or six years ago when
+their cabbages had been trampled upon, their palings torn down, even
+hand-to-hand contests in the passages and one roof on fire. Where were
+the police? The little eyes watched anxiously. There was no sign of the
+police. . . .
+
+Olva smiled at himself for the excitement that he was feeling. He was
+standing at present with Lawrence on the edge of the Common, watching,
+but he was feeling irresistibly drawn towards the dark pile of wood that
+was rising slowly towards the sky.
+
+"As though one were ten years old"--and yet there was Lawrence
+murmuring, "I'd awfully like to hit somebody." And that, after all,
+was what it all came to. Perhaps Olva, if there were really to be some
+"scraps," would be able to work off some of his apprehension, of his
+breathlessness. Oh! for one wild ten minutes when scruples were flung
+to the winds, when there was at last in front of one an enemy whom one
+could touch, whom one could fling, physically, brutally, down before
+one!
+
+"The worst of it is," Lawrence was saying, "there are these town
+cads--they'll be in the back somewhere shoutin' ''It 'im, 'Varsity,'
+or somethin' and then runnin' for their lives if they see a Robert
+comin' . . . it's rotten bein', mixed up with such muck . . . anyhow I'm
+goin' to have a dash at it----" and he had suddenly plunged forward into
+space.
+
+Olva was alone. A breeze blew across the Common, the stars twinkled and
+jumped as though they were suffering from a nervous attack, and with
+every moment restraint was flung a farther distance, more voices called
+aloud and shouted, more men poured out of the little side streets. It
+had the elements of a great mystery. It was as though Mother Earth had,
+with a heave of her breast, tossed these shadowy forms into the air and
+was herself stirring with the emotion of their movement.
+
+There was an instant's breathless silence; to the roar of a shouting
+multitude a bright hard flame shot like steel into the air--the bonfire
+was alight.
+
+Now with every moment it mounted higher. Black pigmy figures were
+now dancing round it and across the Common other figures were always
+passing, dragging wood with them. The row of palings towards the river
+had gone and soon those little cottages that lined the grass must
+suffer. Surely now the whole of the University was gathered there!
+The crowd was close now, dense--men shoved past one another crying out
+excited cries, waving their arms with strange meaningless gestures. They
+were arriving rapidly at that condition when they had neither names nor
+addresses but merely impulses.
+
+Most dangerous element of all threatened that ring of loafers on the
+outskirts--loafers from the town. Here in this "mob of excited boys" was
+opportunity for them of getting something back on that authority that
+had so often treated them with ignominy. . . . Their duty to shout
+approval, to insult at a distance, to run for their lives were their
+dirty bodies in any danger . . . but always to fan the flame---"Good
+old--Varsity--Let them have it, the dirty--" "Pull their shirts off--"
+
+Screams, laughter, shouting, wild dancing--let the Dons come now and see
+what they can make of it!
+
+"Bulldogs!" sounded a voice in Olva's ear, and turning round he beheld
+a breathless, dishevelled Bunning. "I've been pulling wood off the
+palings. Ha! hoch! he! (such noises to recover his breath). _Such_ a
+rag!"--and then more apprehensively, "Bulldogs! There they are, with
+Metcher!" They stood, two big men in top-hats, plainly to be seen behind
+a Don in cap and gown, upon a little hill to the right of the bonfire.
+The flames lit their figures. Metcher, the Don, was reading something
+from a paper, and, round the hill, derisively dancing, were many
+undergraduates. Apparently the Proctor found the situation too difficult
+for him and presently he disappeared. Bunning watched him, apprehension
+and a sense of order struggling' with a desire for adventure. "They've
+gone to fetch the police. There'll be an awful row."
+
+There probably would be because that moment had at last been reached
+when authority was flung absolutely to the winds of heaven. The world
+seemed, in a moment, to have gone mad. Take Bunning, his cheeks
+flushed, his body shaking, his eyes flaming, for an example. Olva, dark,
+motionless in his shadow, watched it all and waited for his moment. He
+knew that it was coming. Grimly he addressed the Shadow, now close to
+his very heart. "I know you. You are urging me on. This night is your
+business. . . . But I am fighting you still! I am fighting you still!"
+
+The moment came. Bunning, clutching on to Olva's sleeve, whispered, "The
+police! Even at that crisis of intensest excitement he could be seen,
+nervously, pushing his spectacles up his nose. A surging crowd of men,
+and Olva again fancied that he caught sight of Craven, swept towards
+the row of timid twinkling lights with their neat little gardens like
+trembling protests laid out before them. More wood! more wood! to
+appease that great flaming monster that shot tongues of fire now to the
+very heavens. More wood! more wood!"
+
+"Look out, the police!"
+
+They came, with their truncheons, in a line down the Common. Olva was
+flung into the heart of a heaving mass of legs and arms. He caught a
+glimpse of Bunning behind and he thought that he saw Craven a little to
+his right. He did not know--he did not care. His blood was up at last.
+He was shouting he knew not what, he was hitting out with his fists.
+Men's voices about him--"Let go, you beast." "My God, I'll finish you."
+"There goes a bobby." "Stamp on him!"
+
+A disgraceful scene. The policemen were hopelessly outnumbered. The
+crowd broke on to the line of orderly little gardens, water was
+poured from windows, the palings were flung to the ground--glass
+broken--screams of women somewhere in the distance.
+
+But even now Olva knew that his moment had not come. Then some one
+shouted in his ear--"Town cads! They're murdering a bobby!" He was
+caught with several other men (of their number was Bunning) off the
+Common up a side street.
+
+A blazing lamp showed him an angry, shouting, jeering crowd; figures
+closed round something on the ground. Four men had joined arms with him,
+and now the five of them, shouting "'Varsity!" hitting right and left,
+rushed into the circle. The circle broke and Olva saw lying his length
+on the ground, half-stunned, clothed only in a torn shirt of bright
+blue, a stout heavy figure--once obviously, from the clothes flung to
+one side, a policeman, now with his large red face in a muddy puddle,
+his fat naked legs bent beneath him, his fingers clutching dirt, nothing
+very human at all. Town cads of the worst! Some brute now was raising
+his foot and kicking the bare flesh!
+
+Instantly the world was on flame for Olva. Now again, as once in Sannet
+Wood, he must hit and hit with all his soul. He broke, like a madman,
+into the heart of the crowd, sending it flying. There were cries and
+screams.
+
+He was conscious of three faces. There was Bunning there, white,
+staring. There was Craven, with his back to a house-door, staring
+also--and directly before him was a purple face with muddy hair fringing
+it and little beady eyes. The face of the brute who had been kicking! He
+must hit. He struck and his fist broke the flesh! He was exultant . . .
+at last he had, after these weeks of intangibility, found something
+solid. The face broke away from him. The circle scattered back and the
+fat, naked body was lying in the mud alone. There was a sudden silence.
+Olva, conscious of a great power surging through his body, raised his
+hand again.
+
+A voice, shrill, terror in it, screamed, "Look out, man, he'll kill
+you!"
+
+He turned and saw under the lamplight Craven, his eyes blazing, his
+finger pointed. He was suddenly cold from head to foot. The voice came,
+it had seemed, from heaven. Craven's eyes were alive now with certainty.
+Then there was another cry from somewhere of "The police!" and the crowd
+had melted. In the little street now there were only the body of the
+policeman and a handful of undergraduates.
+
+They raised the man, poured water over him, found some of his clothes,
+and two men led him, his head lolling, down the street.
+
+There was a noisy world somewhere in the distance, but here there was
+silence. Olva crept slowly out of his exultation and found himself in
+the cold windy street with Bunning for his only companion.
+
+Bunning--now a torn, dirty, bleeding Bunning--gripped his arm.
+
+"Did you hear?"
+
+"Hear what?"
+
+"Craven--when you were fighting there--Craven was watching . . . I saw
+it all . . . Craven suspects."
+
+Olva met the frightened eyes--"He does not suspect."
+
+"Didn't you hear? He called out to the cad you were going for. . . ."
+Then, in a kind of whimper, dismal enough in the dreary little
+street--"He'll find out--Craven--I know he will. . . . Oh! my God! what
+_shall_ I do!"
+
+Some one had broken the glass of the street lamp and the gas flared
+above them, noisily.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+LOVE TO THE "VALSE TRISTE"
+
+1
+
+It was all, when one looked back upon it, the rankest melodrama. The
+darkness, the flaming lamp, Craven's voice and eyes, Bunning . . .
+it had all arranged itself as though it bad been worked by a master
+dramatist. At any rate there they now were, the three of them--Olva,
+Bunning, Craven--placed in a situation that could not possibly stay
+as it was. In which direction was it going to develop? Bunning had no
+control at all, it would be he who would supply the next move . . .
+meanwhile in the back of Olva's mind there was that banging sense of
+urgency, no time to be lost. He must see Margaret and speak before
+Rupert spoke to her. Perhaps, even now, Craven was not certain. If he
+only knew of how much Craven was sure! Did he feel sure enough to speak
+to Margaret?
+
+Meanwhile the first and most obvious thing was that Bunning was in a
+state of terror that threatened instant exposure. The man was evidently
+realizing that now, for the first time, he had a big thing with which he
+must grapple. He must grapple with his devotion to Olva, with his terror
+of Craven, but, most of all, with his terror of himself. That last was
+obviously the thing that tortured him, for, having now been given by the
+High Gods an opportunity of great service, so miserable a creature did
+he consider himself that he would not for an instant trust his control.
+He was trying, Olva saw, with an effort that in its intensity was
+pathetic to prove himself worthy of the chance that had been offered
+him, as though it were the one sole opportunity that he would ever be
+given, but to appear to the world something that he was not was an art
+that Bunning and his kind could never acquire--that is their tragedy.
+It was the fate of Bunning that his boots and spectacles should always
+negative any attempt that he might make at a striking personality.
+
+On the night after the "Rag" he sat in Olva's room and made a supreme
+effort at control.
+
+"If you can only hold on," Olva told him, "to the end of term. It's only
+a week or two now. Just stick it until then; you won't be bothered with
+me after that."
+
+"You're going away?"
+
+"I don't know--it depends."
+
+"I don't know what I should do if you went. To have to stand that awful
+secret all alone . . . only me knowing. Oh! I couldn't! I couldn't! and
+now that Craven--"
+
+"Craven knows nothing. He doesn't even suspect anything. See here,
+Bunning"--Olva crossed over to him and put his hand on his shoulder.
+"Can't you understand that your behaviour makes me wish that I hadn't
+told you, whereas if you care as you say you do you ought to want to
+show me how you can carry it, to prove to me that I was right to tell
+you---"
+
+"Yes, I know. But Craven---"
+
+"Craven knows nothing."
+
+"But he does." Bunning's voice became shrill and his fat hand shook on
+Olva's arm. "There's something I haven't told you. This morning in Outer
+Court he stopped me."
+
+"Craven stopped you?"
+
+"Yes. There was no one about. I was going along to my rooms and he met
+me and he said: 'Hullo, Bunning.'"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I'd been thinking of it--of his knowing, I mean--all night, so I was
+dreadfully startled, dreadfully startled. I'm afraid I showed it."
+
+"Get on. What did he say?"
+
+"He said: 'Hullo, Bunning!'"
+
+"Yes, you've told me that. What else?"
+
+"I said 'Hullo!' I was dreadfully startled. I don't think he'd ever
+spoken to me before. And then he looked so strange--wild, as though he
+hadn't slept, and white, and his eyes moved all the time. I'm afraid he
+saw that I was startled."
+
+"Do get on. What else did he ask you?"
+
+"He asked me whether I'd enjoyed last night. He said: 'You were with
+Dune, weren't you?' He cried, as though he wasn't speaking to me at all:
+'That's an odd sort of friend for you to have.' I ought to have been
+angry I suppose, but I was shaking all over . . . yes . . . well . . .
+then he said: 'I thought you were in with all those pi men,' and I just
+couldn't say anything at all--I was shaking so. He must have thought I
+looked very odd."
+
+"I'm sure he did," said Olva drily. "Well it won't be many days before
+_you_ give the show away--_that's_ certain."
+
+What could have made him tell the fellow? What madness? What---?
+
+But Bunning caught on to his sleeve.
+
+"No, no, you mustn't say that, Dune, please, you mustn't. I'm going to
+do my best, I am really. But his coming suddenly like that, just when
+I'd been thinking. . . . But it's awful. I told you if any one suspected
+it would make it so hard---"
+
+"Look here, Bunning, perhaps it will help you if you know the way that
+I'm feeling about it. I'll try and explain. All these days there's
+something in me that's urging me to go out and confess."
+
+"Conscience," said Bunning solemnly.
+
+"No, it isn't conscience at all. It's something quite different, because
+the thing that's urging me isn't urging me because I've done something
+I'm ashamed of, it's urging me because I'm in a false position. There's
+that on the one side, and, on the other, I'm in love with Rupert
+Craven's sister."
+
+Bunning gave a little cry.
+
+"Yes. That complicates things, doesn't it? Now you see why Rupert Craven
+is the last person who must know anything about it; it's because he
+loves his sister so much and suspects, I think, that I care for her,
+that he's going to find out the truth."
+
+"Does she care for you?" Bunning brought out huskily.
+
+"I don't know. That's what I've got to find out."
+
+"Because it all depends on that. If she cares enough it won't matter
+what you've done, and if she doesn't care enough it won't matter her
+knowing because you oughtn't to marry her. Oh," and Bunning's eyes
+as they gazed at Olva were those, once more, of a devoted dog: "she's
+lucky." Then he repeated, as though to himself, in his odd husky
+whisper: "Anything that I can do . . . anything that I can do . . ."
+
+
+2
+
+On the next evening, about five o'clock, Olva went to the house in
+Rocket Road. He went through a world that, in its frosty stillness,
+held beauty in its hands like a china cup, so fragile in its colours, so
+gentle in its outline, with a moon, round and of a creamy white, with a
+sky faintly red, and stiff trees, black and sharp.
+
+Cambridge came to Olva then as a very lovely thing. The Cambridge life
+was a lovely thing with its kindness, its simplicity, its optimism. He
+was penetrated too with a great sadness because he knew that life of
+that kind was gone, once and for ever, from him; whatever came to him
+now it could never again be that peace; the long houses flung black
+shadows across the white road and God kept him company. . . .
+
+Miss Margaret Craven had not yet come in, but would Mr. Dune, perhaps,
+go up and see Mrs. Craven? The old woman's teeth chattered in the cold
+little hall. "We are dead, all of us dead here," the skins on the walls
+seemed to say; "and you'll be dead soon . . . oh! yes, you will."
+
+Olva went up to Mrs. Craven. The windows of her room were tightly closed
+and a great fire was blazing; before this she lay stretched out on a
+sofa of faded green--her black dress, her motionless white hands, her
+pale face, her moving eyes.
+
+She had beside her to-day a little plate of dry biscuits, and, now and
+again, her hand would move across her black dress and break one of these
+with a sharp sound, and then her hand would fall back again.
+
+"I am very glad to see you. Draw your chair to the fire. It is a chill
+day, but fine, I believe."
+
+She regarded him gravely.
+
+"It is not much of life that I can watch from this room, Mr. Dune. It is
+good of you to come and see me . . . there must be many other things for
+you to do."
+
+He came at once to the point.
+
+"I want your permission to ask your daughter to marry me, Mrs. Craven."
+
+There was a long silence between them. He seemed, in his inner
+consciousness, to be carrying on a dialogue.
+
+"You see," he said to the Shadow, "I have forestalled you. I shall ask
+Margaret Craven this evening to marry me. You cannot prevent that . . .
+you _cannot_."
+
+And a voice answered: "All things betray Thee Who betrayest Me."
+
+"You have known us a very short time, Mr. Dune." Mrs. Craven's voice
+came to him from a great distance.
+
+He felt as though he were speaking to two persons. "Time has nothing to
+do with falling in love, Mrs. Craven."
+
+He saw to his intense amazement that she was greatly moved. She, who
+had always seemed to him a mask, now was suddenly revealed as suffering,
+tortured, intensely human. Her thin white hands were pressed together.
+
+"I am a lonely, unhappy woman, Mr. Dune. Margaret is now all that is
+left to me. Everything has been taken from me. Rupert--" Her voice
+was lost; very slowly tears rolled down her cheeks. She began again
+desperately. "Margaret is all that I have got. If I were left alone it
+would be too much for me. I could not endure the silence."
+
+It was the more moving in that it followed such stern reserve. His own
+isolation, the curious sense that he had that they were, both of them,
+needing protection against the same power (it seemed to him that if he
+raised his eyes he would see, on the opposite wall, the shadow of
+that third Presence); this filled him with the tenderest pity, so that
+suddenly he bent down and kissed her hand.
+
+She caught his with a fierce convulsive movement, and so they sat in
+silence whilst he felt the pulse of her hand beat through his body, and
+once a tear rolled from her cheek on to his wrist.
+
+"You understand . . ." she said at last. "You understand. I have always
+seen that you know. . ." Then she whispered, "How did you know?"
+
+"Know?" He was bewildered, but before she could speak again the door
+opened and Margaret Craven came in.
+
+She moved with that restrained emotion that he had seen in her when he
+had first met her. She was some great force held in check, some fire
+that blazed but must be hidden from the world, and as she bent over
+her mother and kissed her the embrace had in it something of passionate
+protest; both women seemed to assert in it their right to quite another
+sort of life.
+
+He saw that his moment with Mrs. Craven had passed. That fire, that
+humanity had gone from her and she lay back now on her sofa with the
+faint waxen lids closed upon her eyes, her hands thinly folded, almost a
+dead woman.
+
+Margaret kissed her again--now softly and gently, and Olva went with her
+from the room.
+
+
+3
+
+He was prepared to find that Rupert had told her everything. He thought
+that he saw in the gravity and sadness of her manner, and also in the
+silence that she seemed deliberately at first to place between them,
+that she was waiting for the right moment to break it to him. He felt
+that she would ask him gravely and with great kindness, but that, in the
+answer that he would give her, it must be all over . . . the end. The
+pursuit would be concluded.
+
+Then suddenly in the way that she looked at him he knew that she had
+been told nothing.
+
+"I'm afraid that mother is very unwell. I'm afraid that you must have
+found her so."
+
+"If she could get away---" he began.
+
+"Ah! if we could all get away! If only we could! But we have talked of
+that before. It is quite impossible. And, even if we could (and how glad
+I should be!), I do not know that it would help mother. It is Rupert
+that is breaking her heart!"
+
+"Rupert!"
+
+For answer to his exclamation she cried to him with all the pent-up
+suffering and loneliness of the last weeks in her voice--
+
+"Ah, Mr. Dune, help me! I shall go mad if something doesn't happen;
+every day it is worse and I can't grapple with it. I'm not up to it.
+If only they'd speak out! but it's this silence!" She seemed to pull
+herself together and went on more quietly: "You know that Rupert and I
+have been everything to one another all our lives. We have never had
+a secret of any kind. Until this last month Rupert was the most open,
+dearest boy in the world. His tenderness with my mother was a most
+wonderful thing, and to me!--I cannot tell you what he was to me. I
+suppose, for the very reason that we were so much to one another, we
+did not make any other very close friends. I had girls in Dresden, of
+course, and there were men at school and college for whom he cared,
+but I think there can have been few brothers and sisters who were so
+entirely together in every way. A month ago that all ceased."
+
+She flung her head back with a sharp defiant movement as though the
+memory of it hurt her.
+
+"I've told you this before. I talked to you about it when you were
+here last. But since then he has become much worse and I am afraid that
+anything may happen. I have no one to go to. It is killing my mother,
+and then--you were a friend of his."
+
+"I hope that I am now."
+
+"That is the horrible part of it. But it seems now that all this
+agitation, this trouble, is directed against you."
+
+"Against me"
+
+"Yes, the other evening he spoke about you--here--furiously. He said
+you must never come here again, that I must never speak to you again.
+He said that you had done dreadful things. And then when I asked him he
+could not tell me anything. He seemed--and you must look on it in that
+light, Mr. Dune--as though he were not in the least responsible for what
+he said. I'm afraid he is very, very ill. He is dreadfully unhappy, and
+yet he can explain nothing. I too have been very unhappy, and mother,
+because we love him."
+
+"If he wishes that I should not come here again---" Olva began.
+
+"But he is not responsible. He really does not know what he is doing.
+He never had the smallest trouble that he did not confide it to me, and
+now---"
+
+"I have noticed, of course," Olva said "that lately his manner to me has
+been strange. I would have helped him if he would let me, but he will
+not. He will have nothing to say to me . . . I too have been very sorry
+about it. I have been sorry because I am fond of Rupert, but also--there
+is another, stronger reason--because I love you, Margaret."
+
+As he spoke he got up and stood by her chair. He saw her take in his
+last words, at first with a wondering gravity, then with a sudden
+splendour so that light flooded her face; her arms made a little
+helpless gesture, and she caught his hand.
+
+He drew her up to him out of her chair; then, with a fierce passionate
+movement, they held one another and clung together as though in a
+desperate wild protest against the world.
+
+"You can't touch me now--I've got her," he seemed to fling at the blank
+face of the old mirror.
+
+It was his act of defiance, but through his exultation he caught the
+whisper--it might again have been conveyed to him through the shrill
+shivering notes of the "Valse Triste"--"Tell her--tell her--now. Trust
+her. Dear son, trust Me . . . it must be so in the end."
+
+"Now," he heard her say, "I can stand it all."
+
+"When you came into this room weeks ago," she went on, "I loved you;
+from the very first instant. Now I do not mind what any one can do."
+
+"I too loved you from the first instant."
+
+"You were so grave. I tried at first not to think of you as a person at
+all because I thought that it was safer, and then gradually, although I
+fought against you, I could not keep you out. You drove your way in. You
+understood so wonderfully the things that I wanted you to understand.
+Then Rupert and mother drove me to want you more and more. I thought
+that you liked me, but I didn't know. . . ." Then with a little shiver
+she clung to him, pressing close to him. "Oh! hold me, hold me safe."
+
+The room was now gathering to itself that dusk that gave it its
+strangest air. The fire had fallen low and only shone now in the
+recesses of the high fireplace with a dull glimmer. Amongst the shadows
+it seemed that the Presence was gravely waiting. As Olva held Margaret
+in his arms he felt that he was fighting to keep her.
+
+In the dark hollow of the mirror he thought that he saw the long white
+road, the mists, the little wood and some one running. . . .
+
+It seemed to him that Margaret was not there, that the room was dark and
+very heavy, that some bell was ringing in his ear. . . . Then about
+him a thousand voices were murmuring: "Tell her--tell her--tell her the
+truth."
+
+With a last effort he tried to cry "I will not tell her."
+
+His lips broke on her name "Margaret." Then, with a little sigh,
+tumbling forward, he fainted.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+MRS. CRAVEN
+
+1
+
+Afterwards, lying in his easy chair before his fire, he was allowed a
+brief and beautiful respite. It was almost as though he were already
+dead--as though, consciously, he might lie there, apart from the world,
+freed from the eternal pursuit, at last unharassed, and hold, with both
+hands, that glorious certainty--Margaret.
+
+He had a picture of her now. He was lying where he had tumbled, there on
+the floor with the silver trays and boxes, the odd tables, the gimcrack
+chairs all about him. Slowly he had opened his eyes and had gazed,
+instantly, as though the gates of heaven had rolled back for him, into
+her face. She was kneeling on the floor, one hand was behind his head,
+the other bathed his forehead. He could see her breasts (so little, so
+gentle) rise and fall beneath her thin dress, and her great dark eyes
+caught his soul and held it.
+
+In that one great moment God withdrew. For the first time in his
+knowledge of her they were alone, and in the kiss that he gave to her
+when he drew her down to him they met for the first time. Death and the
+anger of God might come to him--that great moment could never be taken
+from him. It was his. . . .
+
+He had seen that she was gravely distressed with his fainting, and he
+had been able to give her no reason beyond the heat of the room. He
+could see that she was puzzled and felt that there was some mystery
+there that she was not to know, but she too had found in that last kiss
+a glorious certainty that no other hazard could possibly destroy.
+
+He loved her--she loved him. Let the Gods thunder!
+
+But he knew, nevertheless, as he lay back there in the chair, that he
+had received a sign. That primrose path with Margaret was not to be
+allowed him, and so sure was he that now he could lie back and look at
+it all as though he were a spectator and wonder in what way God
+intended to work it out. The other side of him--the fighting, battling
+creature--was, for the moment, dormant. Soon Bunning would come in
+and then the fight would begin again, but for the instant there was
+peace--the first peace that he had known since that far-away evening in
+St. Martin's Chapel.
+
+As with a drowning man (it is said) so now with Olva his past life
+stretched, in panorama, before him. He saw the high rocky grey building
+with its rough shape and shaggy lichen, its neglected courtyard, its
+iron-barred windows, the gaunt trees, like witches, that hemmed it, the
+white ribbon of road, far, far below it, the shining gleam of the river
+hidden by purple hills. He saw his father--huge, flowing grey beard,
+eyebrows stuck, like leeches, on to his weather-beaten face, his gnarled
+and knotted hands. He saw himself a tiny boy with thin black hair and
+grave eyes watching his father as he bathed in the mill-pool below the
+house--his father rising naked from the stream, hung with the mists of
+early morning, naked with enormous chest, huge flanks, his beard black
+then and sweeping across his breast, his great thighs shining with the
+dripping water--primitive, primeval, in the heart of the early morning
+silence.
+
+Many, many other pictures of those first days, but always Olva and his
+father, moving together, speaking but seldom, sitting before the fire in
+the evenings, watching the blaze, despising the world. The contempt that
+his father had for his fellow-beings! Had a man ever been so alone? Olva
+himself had drunk of that same contempt and welcomed his solitude at
+Harrow. The world had been with him a place of war, of hostility, until
+he had struck that blow in Sannet Wood. He remembered the eagerness with
+which, at the end of term, he had hastened back to his father. After the
+noise and clatter of school life how wonderful to go back to the still
+sound of dripping water, to the crackle of dry leaves under foot, to
+the heavy solemn tread of cattle, to those evenings when at his father's
+side he heard the coals click in the fire and the old clock on the
+stairs wheeze out the passing minutes. That relationship with his father
+bad been, until this term, the only emotion in his life--and now? And
+now!
+
+It was incredible this change that had come to him. First there was
+Margaret and then, after her, Mrs. Craven, Rupert, Lawrence, Cardillac,
+Bunning. All these persons, in varying degree, bad become of concern to
+him. The world that had always been a place of smoke, of wind, of sky,
+was now, of a sudden, crowded with figures. He bad been swept from the
+hill-top down into the market-place. He had been given perhaps one keen
+glance of a moving world before he was drawn from it altogether. . . .
+Now, just as he had tasted human companionship and loved it, must he
+die?
+
+He knew, too, that his recent popularity in the College had pleased him.
+He wanted them to like him . . . he was proud to feel that because he
+was he therefore Cardillac resigned, willingly, his place to him. But if
+Cardillac knew him for a felon, knew that he might be hanged in the
+dark and flung into a nameless grave, what then? If Cardillac knew what
+Rupert Craven almost knew, would not his horror be the same? The world,
+did it only know. . . .
+
+To-morrow was the day of the Dublin match. Olva and Cardillac were both
+playing, and at the end of the game choice might be made between them.
+Did Olva care? He did not know . . . but Margaret was coming, and, in
+the back of his mind, he wanted to show her what he could do.
+
+And yet, whilst that Shadow hovered in the Outer Court, how little a
+thing this stir and movement was! No tumult that the material world
+could ever make could sound like that whisper that was with him now
+again in the room--with him at his very heart--"All things betray Thee.
+. . ."
+
+The respite was over. Bunning came in.
+
+Change had seized Bunning. Here now was the result of his having pulled
+himself together. Olva could see that the man bad made up his mind
+to something, and that, further, he was resolved to keep his purpose
+secret. It was probably the first occasion in Bunning's life of such
+resolution. There was a faint colour in the fat cheeks, the eyes bad a
+little light and the man scarcely spoke at all lest this purpose should
+trickle from his careless lips. Also as he looked at Olva his customary
+devotion was heightened by an air of frightened pride.
+
+Olva, watching him, was apprehensive--the devotion of a fool is the
+most dangerous thing in creation.
+
+"Well, have you seen Craven again?"
+
+"Yes. We had a talk."
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"Oh, nothing."
+
+"Rot. He didn't stop and talk to you about the weather. Come on,
+Bunning, what have you been up to?"
+
+"I haven't been up to anything."
+
+The man's lips were closed. For another half an hour Bunning sat in a
+chair before the fire--silent. Every now and again he flung a glance at
+Olva. Sometimes he jerked his head towards the window as though he heard
+a step.
+
+He had the look of a Christian going into the amphitheatre to face the
+Beasts.
+
+
+2
+
+About eleven o'clock of the next morning Olva went to see Margaret. He
+had written to her the night before and asked her not to tell Rupert
+the news of their engagement immediately, but, when the morning came, he
+could not rest with that. He must know more.
+
+It was a damp, misty morning, the fine frost had gone. He was going to
+Margaret to try and recover some reality out of the state that he was
+in. The recent incidents--Craven's suspicions, the 5th of November
+evening, Bunning's alarm, the scene with Margaret--bad dragged him for
+a time from that conviction that he was living in an unreal world. That
+day when he had run in the snowstorm from Sannet Wood had seemed to him,
+during these last weeks, absurd and an effect, obviously, of excited
+nerves. Now, on this morning of the Dublin match, he awoke again to
+that unreal condition. The bedmaker, the men passing through the Court
+beneath his windows, the porter at the gate--these people were unreal,
+and above him, around him, the mist seemed ever about to break into new
+terrible presences.
+
+"This thing is wearing me down. I shall go off my head if something
+definite doesn't happen"--and then, there in his room with the stupid
+breakfast things still on the table, the consciousness of the presence
+of God seized him so that he felt as though the pursuit were suddenly at
+an end and there was nothing left now but complete submission.
+
+In this world of wraiths, God was the most certain Presence. . . .
+
+There remained only Margaret. Perhaps she could recover reality for him.
+He went to her.
+
+He found her waiting for him in the little drawing-room and he could not
+see her. He knew then that the Pursuing Shadow had taken a new step. It
+was literally physically true. The room was there, the shining things,
+the knick-knacks, the mirror, the scent of oranges. He could see her
+body, her black dress, her eyes, her white neck, the movement towards
+him that she made when she saw him coming, but there was nothing there.
+It was as though he had been asked to love a picture.
+
+He could not think of her at all as Margaret Craven or of himself
+as Olva Dune. Only in the glass's reflection he saw the white road
+stretching to the wood.
+
+"I really am going off my head. She'll see that something's up"--and
+then from the bottom of his heart, far away as though it had been the
+cry of another person, "Oh! how I want her How I want her!"
+
+He took her in his arms and kissed her and felt as though he were dead
+and she were dead and that they were both, being so young am eager for
+life, struggling to get back existence again.
+
+Her voice came to him from a long distance "Olva, how ill you look! What
+is it? What won't you tell me? There's something the matter with you all
+and you all keep me in the dark."
+
+He said nothing and she went on very gently, "It would be so much
+better, dear, if you were to tell me. After all, I'm part of you now,
+aren't I? Perhaps I can help you."
+
+His own voice, from a long distance, said: "I don't think that you can
+help me, Margaret."
+
+She put her hand on his arm and looked up into his face. "I am trying to
+help you all, but it is so difficult if you will tell me nothing. And,
+Olva dear, if it is something that you have done--something that you are
+afraid to tell me--believe me, dear, that there's nothing--nothing in
+the world--that you could have done that would matter to me now. I love
+you--nothing can alter that."
+
+He tried to feel that the hand on his arm was real. With a great effort
+he spoke: "Have you told Rupert?"
+
+"Mother told him last night."
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"I don't know--but they had a terrible scene. Rupert," her lip quivered,
+"went away without a word last night. Only he told mother that if I
+would not give you up he would never come into the house again. But he
+loves me more than any one in the world, and he can't do without me. I
+know that he can't, and I know that he will come back. Mother wants to
+see you; perhaps you will go up to her."
+
+She had moved back from him and was looking at him with sad perplexity.
+He knew that he must seem strange and cold standing there, in the middle
+of the room, without making any movement towards her, but he could not
+help himself, he seemed to have no power over his own actions.
+
+Coming up to him she flung her arms round his neck. "Olva, Olva, tell
+me, I can't endure it"--but slowly he detached himself from her and
+left her.
+
+As he went through the dark close passage he wondered how God could be
+so cruel.
+
+When he came into Mrs. Craven's room he knew that her presence comforted
+him. The dark figure on the faded sofa by the fire seemed to him now
+more real than anything else in the world. Although Mrs. Craven made
+no movement yet he felt that she encouraged him come to her, that she
+wanted him. The room was very dark and bare, and although a large fire
+blazed in the hearth, it was cold. Beyond the window a misty world,
+dank, with dripping trees, stretched to a dim horizon. Mrs. Craven did
+not turn her eyes from the fire when she heard him enter. He felt as
+though she were watching him and knew that he had drawn a chair beside
+the sofa. Suddenly she moved her hand towards him and he took it and
+held it for a moment.
+
+She turned and he saw that she had been crying.
+
+"I had a talk with my son last night," she said at last, and her voice
+seemed to him the saddest thing that he had ever heard. "We had always
+loved one another until lately. Last night he spoke to me as he has
+never spoken before. He was very angry and I know that he did not mean
+all that he said to me--but it hurt me."
+
+"I'm afraid, Mrs. Craven, that it was because of me. Rupert is very
+angry with me and he refuses to consent to Margaret's marriage with me.
+Is not that so?"
+
+"Yes, but it is not only that. For many weeks now he has not been
+himself with me. I am not a happy woman. I have had much to make me
+unhappy. My children are a very great deal to me. I think that this has
+broken my heart."
+
+"Mrs. Craven, if there is anything that I can do that will put things
+right, if I can say anything to Rupert, if I can tell him anything,
+explain anything, I will. I think I can tell you, Mrs. Craven, why it
+is that Rupert does not wish me to marry Margaret. I have something to
+confess--to you."
+
+Then he was defeated at last? He had surrendered? In another moment the
+words "I killed Carfax and Rupert knows that I killed him" would have
+left his lips--but Mrs. Craven had not heard his words. Her face was
+turned away from him again and she spoke in a strange, monotonous voice
+as one speaks in a dream.
+
+The words seemed to be created out of the faded sofa, the misty window,
+the dim shadowy bed. She was crying--her hands were pressed to her
+face--the words came between her sobs.
+
+"It is too much for me. All these years I have kept silence. Now I can
+bear it no longer. If Rupert leaves me, it will kill me, but unless I
+speak to some one I shall die of all this silence, . . . I cannot bear
+any longer to be alone with God."
+
+Was it his own voice? Were these his own words? Had things gone so far
+with him that he did not know--"I cannot bear any longer to be alone
+with God. . . ." Was not that his own perpetual cry?
+
+"Mr. Dune, I killed my husband."
+
+In the silence that followed the only sound was her stifled crying and
+the crackling fire.
+
+"You knew from the beginning."
+
+"No, I did not know."
+
+"But you were different from all the others. I felt it at once when I
+saw you. You knew, you understood, you were sorry for me."
+
+"I am sorry. I understand. But I did not know."
+
+"Let me tell you." She turned her face towards him and began to speak
+eagerly.
+
+He took her hand between his.
+
+"Oh! the relief--now at once--after all these years of silence. Fifteen
+years. . . . It happened when Rupert was a tiny boy. You see he was
+a bad man. I found it out almost at once--after a month or two. But I
+loved him madly--utterly. I did not care about his being bad--that does
+not matter to a woman--but he set about breaking my heart. It amused
+him. Margaret was born. He used to terrify me with the things that he
+would teach her. He said that he would make her as big a devil as he
+was himself. I prayed God that I might never have another child and
+then Rupert was born. From that moment my one prayer was that my husband
+might die.
+
+"At last my opportunity came. He fell ill--dreadful attacks of
+heart--and one night he had a terrible attack and I held back the
+medicine that would have saved him. I saw his eyes watching me, pleading
+for it. I stood and waited . . . he died."
+
+She stopped for a moment--then her words came more slowly: "It was a
+very little thing--it was not a very bad thing--he was a wicked
+man . . . but God has punished me and He will punish me until I die. All
+these years He has pursued me, urging me to confess--I have fought and
+struggled against it, but at last He has beaten me--He has driven me.
+. . . Oh! the relief! the relief!"
+
+She looked at him curiously.
+
+"If you did not know, why did I feel that you understood and
+sympathized? Have you no horror of me now?"
+
+For answer, he bent and kissed her cheek.
+
+"I too am very lonely. I too know what God can do."
+
+Then she clung to him as though she would never let him leave her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+GOD
+
+1
+
+Half an hour later he was in his room again, and the real world had come
+back to him. It had come back with the surprise of some supernatural
+mechanism; it was as though the sofa, chairs, pictures had five minutes
+before been grass and toadstools in a world of mist and now were sofa,
+chairs and pictures again.
+
+He was absolutely sane, whereas half an hour ago he had been held almost
+by an enchantment. If Margaret were here with him now, here in his
+room--not in that dim, horrible Rocket Road house, raised it might
+almost seem by the superstitions and mists of his own conscience--ah!
+how he would love her!
+
+He was filled with a sense of energy and enterprise. He would have it
+out with Rupert, laugh away his suspicions, reconcile him to the idea of
+the marriage, finally drag Margaret from that horrible house. As with a
+man who has furious attacks of neuralgia, and between the agony of them
+feels, so great is the relief, that no pain will ever come to him again,
+so Olva was now, for an instant, the Olva of a month ago.
+
+Four times had the Pursuer thus given him respite--on the morning after
+the murder, in St. Martin's Chapel on that same evening, after his
+confession to Bunning, and now. But Aegidius, looking down from his
+wall, saw the strong, stern face of his young friend and loved him and
+knew that, at last, the pursuit was at an end. . . .
+
+Bunning came in.
+
+
+2
+
+Bunning came in. The little silver clock had just struck a quarter to
+one. The match was at half-past two.
+
+Olva knew at his first sight of Bunning that something had happened. The
+man seemed dazed, he dragged his great legs slowly after him and planted
+them on the floor as though he wanted something that was secure, like
+a man who had begun desperately to slip down a crevasse. His back was
+bowed and his cheeks were flushed as though some one had been striking
+him, but his eyes told Olva everything. They were the eyes of a child
+who has been wakened out of sleep and sees Terror.
+
+"What is it? Sit down. Pull yourself together."
+
+"Oh! Dune! . . . My God, Dune!" The man's voice had the unreality of men
+walking in a cinematograph. "Craven's coming."
+
+"Coming! Where?"
+
+"Here!"
+
+"Now?"
+
+"I don't know--when. He knows."
+
+"You told him?"
+
+"I thought it best. I thought I was doing right. It's all gone wrong.
+Oh! these last two days! what I've suffered!"
+
+Now for the first time in the history of the whole affair Olva Dune may
+be said to have felt sheer physical terror, not terror of the mist,
+of the road, of the darkness, of the night, but terror of physical
+things--of the loss of light and air, of the denial of food, of physical
+death. . . . For a moment the room swam about him. He heard, in the
+Court below him, some men laughing--a dog was barking. Then he saw that
+Bunning was on the edge of hysteria. The bedmaker would come in and find
+him laughing--as he had laughed once before.
+
+Olva stilled the room with a tremendous effort--the floor sank, the
+table and chairs tossed no longer.
+
+"Now, Bunning, tell me quickly. They'll be here to lay lunch in a
+minute. What have you told Craven? And why have you told him anything?"
+
+"I told him--yesterday--that I did it."
+
+"That _you_ did it?"
+
+"Yes, that I murdered Carfax."
+
+"My God! You fool! . . . You fool!"
+
+A most dangerous thing this devotion of a fool.
+
+But, strangely, Olva's words roused in Bunning a kind of protest, so
+that he pulled his eyes back into their sockets, steadied his hands,
+held his boots firmly to the floor, and, quite softly, with a little
+note of urgency in it as though he were pleading before a great court,
+said--
+
+"Yes, I know. But he drove me to it; Craven did. I thought it was the
+only way to save you. He's been at me now for days; ever since that time
+he stopped me in Outer Court and asked me why I was a friend of yours.
+He's been coming to my room--at night--at all sorts of times--and just
+sitting there and looking at me."
+
+Olva came across and touched Bunning's arm: "Poor Bunning! What a brute
+I was to tell you!"
+
+"He used to come and say nothing--just look at me. I couldn't stand it,
+you know. I'm not a clever man--not at all clever--and I used to try
+and think of things to talk about, but it always seemed to come back to
+Carfax--every time."
+
+"And then--when you told me the other day about your caring for Miss
+Craven--I felt that I must do something. I'd always puzzled, you know,
+why I should be brought into it at all. I didn't seem to be the sort of
+fellow who'd be likely to be mixed up with a man like you. I felt that
+it must be with some purpose, you know, and now--now--I thought I
+suddenly saw--
+
+"I don't know--I thought he'd believe me--I thought he'd tell the police
+and they'd arrest me--and that'd be the end of it."
+
+Here Bunning took a handkerchief and began miserably to gulp and sniff.
+
+"But, good heavens!" Olva cried, "you didn't suppose that they wouldn't
+discover it all at the police-station in a minute! Two questions and
+you'd be done! Why, man----!"
+
+"I didn't know. I thought it would be all right. I was all alone that
+afternoon, out for a walk by myself--and you'd told me how you did it.
+I'd only got to tell the same story. I couldn't see how any one should
+know---I couldn't really . . . I don't suppose"--many gulps--"that I
+thought much about that--I only wanted to save you."
+
+How bright and wonderful the day! How full of colour the world! And it
+was all over, all absolutely, finally done.
+
+"Now--look here, stop that sniffing--it's all right. I'm not angry with
+you. Just tell me exactly what you said to Craven yesterday when you
+told him."
+
+Bunning thought. "Well, he came into my room quite early after my
+breakfast. I was reading my Bible, as I used to, you know, every
+morning, to see whether I could be interested again, as I used to be. I
+was finding I couldn't when Craven came in. He looked queer. He's been
+looking queerer every day, and I don't think he's been sleeping. Then
+he began to ask me questions, not actually about anything, but odd
+questions like, Where was I born? and Why did I read the Bible? and
+things like that--just to make me comfortable--and his eyes were so
+funny, red and small and never still. Then he got to you."
+
+The misery now in Bunning's eyes was more than Olva could bear. It was
+dumb, uncomprehending misery, the unhappiness of something caught in a
+trap--and that trap this glittering dancing world!
+
+"Then he got to you! He always asked me the same questions. How long
+I'd known you?--Why we got on together when we were so different?--silly
+meaningless things--and he didn't listen to my answers. He was always
+thinking of the next things to ask and that frightened me so."
+
+The misery in Bunning's eyes grew deeper.
+
+"Suddenly I thought I saw what was meant--that I was intended to take it
+on myself. It made me warm all over, the though of it. . . . Now, I was
+going to do something . . . that's how I saw it!"
+
+"Going to do something . . ." he repeated desperately, with choking
+sobs between the words. "It's all happened so quickly. He had just said
+absently, not looking at me, 'You like Dune, don't you?'
+
+"When I came out with it all at once---I said, 'Yes, I know, I know what
+_you_ want. You think that Dune killed Carfax and that _I_ know he did,
+but he didn't _I_ killed Carfax. . . .'"
+
+Bunning's voice quite rang out. His eyes now desperately sought Olva's
+face, as though he would find there something that would make the world
+less black.
+
+"I wasn't frightened---not then---that was the odd thing. The only thing
+I thought about was saving you---getting you out of it. I didn't see! I
+didn't see!"
+
+"And then---what did Craven say?" Olva asked quietly.
+
+"Craven said scarcely anything. He asked me whether I realized what I
+was saying, whether I saw what I was in for? I said 'Yes'---that it had
+all been too much for my conscience, that I had to tell some one---all
+the things that you told me. Then he asked me why I'd done it. I told
+him because Carfax always bullied me---he did, you know---and that one
+day I couldn't stand it any longer and I met him in the wood and hit
+him. He said, 'You must be very strong,' and of course I'm not, you
+know, and that ought to have made me suspect something. But it didn't.
+. . . Then he said he must think over what he ought to do, but all the
+time he was saying it I knew he was thinking of something else and then
+he went away."
+
+"That was yesterday morning?"
+
+"Yesterday morning, and all day I was terrified, but happy too. I
+thought I'd done a big thing and I thought that the police would come
+and carry me off. . . . Nothing happened all day. I sat there waiting.
+And I thought of you---that you'd be able to marry Miss Craven and
+would be very happy.
+
+"Then, this morning, coming from chapel, Craven stopped me. I thought he
+was going to tell me that he'd thought it his duty to give me away. He
+would, you know. But it wasn't that.
+
+"All he said was: 'I wonder how you know so much about it, Bunning.' I
+couldn't say anything. Then he said, 'I'm going to ask Dune.' That was
+all . . . all," he wretchedly repeated, and then, with a movement of
+utter despair, flung his head into his hands, and cried.
+
+Olva, standing straight with his hands at his side, looked through his
+window at the world---at the white lights on the lower sky, at the pearl
+grey roofs and the little cutting of dim white street and the high grey
+college wall. He was to begin again, it seemed, at the state in which
+he'd been on the day after Carfax's murder. Then he had been sure that
+arrest would only be a question of hours and he had resolutely faced it
+with the resolve that he would drain all the life, all the vigour, all
+the fun from the minutes that remained to him.
+
+Now he had come back to that. Craven would give him away, perhaps . . .
+he would, at any rate, drive him away from Margaret. But he would almost
+certainly feel it his duty to expose him. He would feel that that would
+end the complication with his sister once and for all---the easiest way.
+He would feel it his duty---these people and their duty!
+
+Well, at least he would have his game of football first---no one could
+take his afternoon away from him. Margaret would be there to watch him
+and he would play! Oh! he would play as he had never played in his life
+before!
+
+Bunning's voice came to him from a great distance---
+
+"What are you going to do? What are you going to say to Craven?"
+
+"Say to him? Why, I shall tell him, of course---tell him everything."
+
+Bunning leapt from his chair. In his urgency he put his hands on Olva's
+arm: "No, no, no. You mustn't do that. Why it will be as though I'd
+murdered you. Tell him I did it. Make him believe it. You can---you're
+clever enough. Make him feel that I did it. You mustn't, mustn't---let
+him know. Oh, please, please. I'll kill myself if you do. I will
+really."
+
+Olva gravely, quietly, put his hands on Bunning's shoulders.
+
+"It's all right---it had to come out. I've been avoiding it all this
+time, escaping it, but it had to come. Don't you be afraid of it. I
+daresay Craven won't do anything. After all he loves his sister and she
+cares for him. That will influence him. But, anyhow, all that's done
+with. There are bigger things in question than Craven knowing about
+Carfax, and you were meant to tell him---you were really. You've just
+forced me to see what's the right thing to do---that's all."
+
+Bunning was, surely, in the light of it, a romantic figure.
+
+Miss Annett came in with the lunch.
+
+
+3
+
+As Olva was changing into his football things, Cardillac appeared.
+
+"Come up to the field with me, will you? I've got a hansom."
+
+Olva finished tying his boots and stood up. Cardillac looked at him.
+
+"My word, you seem fit."
+
+"Yes, I'm splendid, thanks."
+
+He felt splendid. Never before had he been so conscious of the right to
+be alive. His football clothes smelt of the earth and the air. He moved
+his arms and legs with wonderful freedom. His blood was pumping through
+his body as though death, disease, infirmity such things---were of
+another planet.
+
+For such a man as he there should only be air, love, motion, the
+begetting of children, the surprising splendour of a sudden death. Now
+already Craven was waiting for him.
+
+He had sent a note round to Craven's rooms; he had said, "Come in to see
+me after the match---five o'clock. I have something to tell you."
+
+At five o'clock then. . . .
+
+Meanwhile it was nice of Cardillac to come. They exchanged no words
+about it, but they understood one another entirely. It was as though
+Cardillac had said---"I expect that you're going to knock me out of this
+Rugger Blue as you knocked me out of the Wolves, and I want to show you
+that we're pals all the way through."
+
+What Cardillac really said was---"Have a cigarette? These are Turkish.
+Feel like playing a game to-day?"
+
+"Never felt better in my life."
+
+"Well, these Dublin fellows haven't had their line crossed yet this
+season. May one of us have the luck to do it."
+
+"Pretty hefty lot of forwards."
+
+"Yes, O'Brien's their spot Three I believe."
+
+Olva and Cardillac attracted much attention as they walked through
+the College. Miss Annett, watching them from a little window where she
+washed plates, gulped in her thin throat with pride for "that Mr. Dune.
+There's a gentleman!" The sun above the high grey buildings broke slowly
+through yellow clouds. The roads were covered with a thin fine mud and,
+from the earth, faint clouds of mist rose and vanished into a sky that
+was slowly crumbling from thick grey into light watery blue.
+
+The cold air beat upon their faces as the hansom rattled past Dunstan's,
+over the bridge, and up the hill towards the field.
+
+Cardillac talked. "There goes Braff. He doesn't often come up to a
+game nowadays--must be getting on for seventy--the greatest half the
+'Varsity's ever had, I suppose."
+
+"It's a good thing this mud isn't thicker. It won't make the ball bad.
+That game against Monkstown the other day! My word. . . ."
+
+But Olva was not listening. It seemed to him now that two separate
+personalities were divided in him so sharply that it was impossible to
+reconcile them.
+
+There was Olva Dune concentrating all his will, his mentality, upon the
+game that he was about to play. This was his afternoon. After it there
+would be darkness, death, what you will--parting from Margaret--all
+purely physical emotions.
+
+The other Olva felt nothing physical. The game, confession to Rupert,
+trial, imprisonment, even separation from Margaret, all these things
+were nothing in comparison with some great business that was in progress
+behind it all, as real life may go on behind the painted back cloth of a
+stage. Here were amazing happenings, although at present he was confused
+and bewildered by them. It was not that Olva was, actually, at the
+instant conscious of actual impressions, but rather that great emotions,
+great surprising happiness, seemed to shine on some horizon. It was as
+though something had said to his soul, "Presently you will feel a joy, a
+splendour, that you had never in your wildest thoughts imagined."
+
+The pursuit was almost at an end. He was now enveloped, enfolded.
+Already everything to him--even his love for Margaret--was trivial in
+comparison with the effect of some atmosphere that was beginning to hem
+him in on every side.
+
+But against all this was the other Olva--the Olva who desired physical
+strength, love, freedom, health.
+
+Well, let it all be as confusing as it might, he would play his game.
+But as he walked into the Pavilion he knew that the prelude to his real
+life had only a few more hours to run. . . .
+
+
+4
+
+As he passed, with the rest of the team, up the field, he observed two
+things only; one thing was Margaret, standing on the left side of the
+field just below the covered stand--he could see her white face and her
+little black hard hat.
+
+The other thing was that on the horizon where the wall at the further
+end of the field cut the sky there were piled, as though resting on the
+top of the wall, high white clouds. For a moment these clouds, piled in
+mountain shape of an intense whiteness with round curving edges, held
+his eyes because they exactly resembled those clouds that had hung above
+him on the day of his walk to Sannet Wood--the day when he had been
+caught by the snowstorm. These clouds brooded, waiting above him; their
+dazzling white had the effect of a steady, unswerving gaze.
+
+They lined out. He took his place as centre three-quarter with Cardillac
+outside left and Tester and Buchan on the other wing. Old Lawrence
+was standing, a solid rock of a figure, back. There was a great crowd
+present. The tops of the hansom cabs in the road beyond rose above the
+wall, and he could hear, muffled with distance, shots from the 'Varsity
+firing range.
+
+All these things focussed themselves upon his brain in the moment before
+the whistle went; the whistle blew, the Dublin men had kicked off,
+Tester had fielded the ball, sent it back into touch, and the game had
+begun.
+
+This was to be the game of his life and yet he could not centre his
+attention upon it. He was conscious that Whymper--the great Whymper--was
+acting as linesman and watching every movement. He knew that for most
+of that great crowd his was the figure that was of real concern, he
+knew that he was as surely battling for his lady as though he had been
+fighting, tournament-wise, six hundred years ago.
+
+But it all seemed of supreme unimportance. To-night he was to face
+Rupert, to state, once and for all, that he had killed Carfax, to submit
+Margaret to a terrible test . . . even that of no importance. All life
+was insignificant beside something that was about to happen; before the
+gaze of that white dazzling cloud be felt that he stood, a little pigmy,
+alone on a brown spreading field.
+
+The game was up at the University end. The Dublin men were pressing and
+the Cambridge forwards seemed to have lost their heads. It was a case
+now of "scrum," lining out, and "scrum" again. The Cambridge men got the
+ball, kept it between their heels and tried, desperately to wheel with
+it and carry it along with them. It escaped them, dribbled out of the
+scrimmage, the Cambridge half leapt upon it, but the Dublin man was upon
+him before he could get it away. It was on the ground again, the Dublin
+forwards dribbled it a little and then some one, sweeping it into his
+arms, fell forward with it, over the line, the Cambridge men on top of
+him.
+
+Dublin had scored a try, and a goal from an easy angle followed--Dublin
+five points.
+
+They all moved back to the centre of the field and now the Cambridge
+men, rushing the ball from a line-out in their favour, pressed hard. At
+last the ball came to the three-quarters. Tester caught it, it passed to
+Buchan, who as he fell flung it right out to Cardillac; Cardillac draw
+his man, swerved, and sent it back to Olva. As Olva felt the neat hard
+surface of it, as he knew that the way was almost clear before him, his
+feet seemed clogged with heavy weights. Something was about to happen to
+him--something, but not this. The crowd behind the ropes were shouting,
+he knew that he was himself running, but it seemed that only his body
+was moving, his real self was standing back, gazing at those white
+clouds--waiting.
+
+He knew that he made no attempt to escape the man in front of him; he
+seemed to run straight into his arms; he heard a little sigh go up from
+behind the ropes, as he tumbled to the ground, letting the ball trickle
+feebly from his fingers. A try missed if ever one was!
+
+No one said anything, but he felt the disappointment in the air. He
+knew what they were saying--"One of Dune's off days! I always said you
+couldn't depend upon the man. He's just too sidey to care what happens.
+. . ."
+
+Well they might say it if they would; his eyes were on the horizon.
+
+But his failure had had its effect. Let there be an individualist in
+the line and Tester and Buchan would play their well-ordered game to
+perfection. They relied as a rule upon Whymper--to-day they had depended
+upon Dune. Well Dune had failed them, the forwards were heeling so
+slowly, the scrum-half was never getting the ball away--it was a
+miserable affair.
+
+The Dublin forwards pressed again. For a long time the two bodies of men
+swayed backwards and forwards; in the University twenty-five Lawrence
+was performing wonders. He seemed to be everywhere at once, bringing
+men down, seizing, in a lightning flash of time, his opportunity for
+relieving by kicking into touch.
+
+Twice the ball went to the Dublin three-quarters and they seemed
+certainly in, but on the first occasion a man slipped and on the second
+Olva caught his three-quarter and brought him sharply to the ground. It
+was the only piece of work that he had done.
+
+More struggling--then away on the right some Dublin man had caught it
+and was running. Some one dashed at him to hurl him into touch, but he
+slipped past and was in.
+
+Another try--the kick was again successful--Dublin ten points.
+
+The half-time whistle blew. As the met gathered into groups in the
+middle of the field, sucking lemons and gathering additional melancholy
+there from, Olva stood a little away from them. Whymper came out into
+the field to exhort and advise. As he passed Olva he said--
+
+"Rather missed that try of yours. Ought to have gone a bit faster."
+
+He did not answer, it seemed to be no concern of his at all. He was now
+trembling it every limb, but his excitement had nothing to do with
+the game. It seemed to him that the earth and the sky were sharing his
+emotion am he could feel in the air a great exaltation. I was becoming
+literally true for him that earth air, sky were praising at this moment,
+in wonderful unison, some great presence.
+
+"All things betray Thee who betrayest Me. . . ." Now he understood what
+that line had intended him to feel--the very sods crushed by his boots
+were leading him to submission.
+
+The whistle sounded. His back now was turned to the white clouds; he was
+facing the high stone wall and the tops of the hansom cabs.
+
+The game began again. The Dublin men were determined to drive their
+advantage to victory. Another goal and their lead might settle, once and
+for all, the issue.
+
+Olva was standing back, listening. The earth was humming like a top. A
+voice seemed to be borne on the wind--"Coming, Coming, Coming."
+
+He felt that the clouds were spreading behind him and a little wind
+seemed to be whispering in the grass--"Coming, Coming, Coming." His very
+existence now was strung to a pitch of expectation.
+
+As in a dream he saw that a Dublin man with the ball had got clear away
+from the clump of Cambridge forwards, and was coming towards him. Behind
+him only was Lawrence. He flung himself at the man's knees, caught them,
+falling himself desperately forward. They both came crashing to the
+ground. It was a magnificent collar, and Olva, as he fell, heard, as
+though it were miles away, a rising shout, saw the sky bend down to him,
+saw the ball as it was jerked up rise for a moment into the air--was
+conscious that some one was running.
+
+
+5
+
+He was on his knees, alone, on the vast field that sloped a little
+towards the horizon.
+
+Before him the mountain clouds were now lit with a clear silver light so
+dazzling that his eyes were lowered.
+
+About him was a great silence. He was himself minute in size, a tiny,
+tiny bending figure.
+
+Many years passed.
+
+A great glory caught the colour from the sky and earth and held it like
+a veil before the cloud.
+
+In a voice of the most radiant happiness Olva cried--
+
+"I have fled--I am caught--I am held . . . Lord, I submit."
+
+And for the second time he heard God's voice--
+
+"My Son . . . My Son."
+
+He felt a touch--very gentle and tender--on his shoulder.
+
+
+6
+
+Many years had passed. He opened his eyes and saw the ball that had been
+rising, many years ago, now falling.
+
+The man whom he had collared was climbing to his feet; behind them men
+were bending down for a "scrum." The shout that he had heard when he had
+fallen was still lingering in the air.
+
+And yet many years had passed.
+
+"Hope you're not hurt," the Dublin man said. "Came down hard."
+
+"No, thanks, it's all right."
+
+Olva got on to his feet. Some one cried, "Well collared, Dune."
+
+He ran back to his place. Now there was no hesitation or confusion. A
+vigour like wine filled his body. The Cambridge men now were pressing;
+the ball was flung back to Cardillac, who threw to Olva. The Dublin line
+was only a few yards away and Olva was over. Lawrence kicked a goal and
+Cambridge had now five points to the Dublin ten.
+
+Cambridge now awoke to its responsibilities. The Dublin men seemed to be
+flagging a little, and Tester and Buchan, having apparently decided that
+Olva was himself again, played their accustomed game.
+
+But what had happened to Dune? There he had been his old casual superior
+self during the first half of the game. Now he was that inspired player
+that the Harlequin match had once revealed him. Whymper had spoken to
+him at half-time. That was what it was--Whymper had roused him.
+
+For he was amazing. He was everywhere. Even when he had been collared,
+he was suddenly up, had raced after the three-quarter line, caught them
+up and was in the movement again. Five times the Cambridge Threes were
+going, were half-way down the field, and were checked by the wonderful
+Dublin defence. Again and again Cambridge pressed. There were only ten
+minutes left for play and Cambridge were still five points behind.
+
+Somebody standing in the crowd said, "By Jove, Dune seems to be enjoying
+it. I never saw any one look as happy."
+
+Some one else said, "Dune's possessed by a devil or something. I never
+saw anything like that pace. He doesn't seem to be watching the game at
+all, though."
+
+Some one said, "There's going to be a tremendous snowstorm in a minute.
+Look at those white clouds."
+
+Then, when there were five minutes more to play, there was a forward
+rush over the Dublin line--a Cambridge man, struggling at the bottom
+of a heap of legs and arms, touched down. A Dublin appeal was made for
+"Carried over," but--no--"Try for Cambridge."
+
+A deafening shout from behind the ropes, then a breathless pause whilst
+Lawrence stepped back to take the kick, then a shattering roar as the
+ball sailed between the posts.
+
+Ten points all and three minutes left to play.
+
+They were back to the centre, the Dublin men had kicked, Tester had
+gathered and returned to touch. There was a line-out, a Cambridge man
+had the ball and fell, Cambridge dribbled past the ball to the half, the
+ball was in Cardillac's hands.
+
+Let this be ever to Cardillac's honour! Fame of a lifetime might have
+been his, the way was almost clear before him--he passed back to Olva.
+The moment had come. The crowd fell first into a breathless silence,
+then screamed with excitement--
+
+"Dune's got it. He's off!"
+
+He had a crowd of men upon him. Handing off, bending, doubling, almost
+down, slipping and then up again--he was through them.
+
+The great clouds were gathering the grey sky into their white arms. Mr.
+Gregg, at the back of the stand, forgetting for once decorum, white and
+trembling, was hoarse with shouting.
+
+Olva's body seemed so tiny on that vast field--two Dublin three-quarters
+came for him. He appeared to run straight into the arms of both of them
+and then was through them. They started after him--one man was running
+across field to catch him. It was a race. Now there fell silence as the
+three men tore after the flying figure. Surely never, in the annals of
+Rugby football, had any one run as Olva ran then. Only now the Dublin
+back, and he, missing the apparent swerve to the right, clutched
+desperately at Olva's back, caught the buckle of his "shorts" and stood
+with the thing torn off in his hand.
+
+He turned to pursue, but it was too late. Olva had touched down behind
+the posts.
+
+As he started back with the ball the wide world seemed to be crying and
+shouting, waving and screaming.
+
+Against the dull grey sky far away an ancient cabman, standing on the
+top of his hansom, flourished his whip.
+
+But as he stood there the shouting died--the crowds faded--alone there
+on the brown field with the white high clouds above him, Olva was
+conscious, only, of the gentle touch of a hand on his shoulder.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+PRELUDE TO A JOURNEY
+
+1
+
+He had a bath, changed his clothes, and sitting before his fire waited.
+
+As he looked around his room he knew that he was leaving it for ever.
+What ever might be the issue of his conversation with Rupert, he knew
+that that at any rate was true; he would never return here again--or he
+would not return until he had worked out his duty. He looked about
+him regretfully; he had grown very fond of that room and the things
+in it--the shape of it, the books, the blue bowls, the bright fire,
+"Aegidius" (but he would take "Aegidius" with him). He looked last at
+the photograph of his father, the rocky eyes, the flowing beard, the
+massive shoulders.
+
+It was back to him that he was going, and he would walk all the way.
+Walking alone he would listen, he would watch, he would wait, and then,
+in that great silence, he would be told what he must do.
+
+In the pleasant crackle of the fire, in the shaded light of the lamp, in
+the starlit silence of the College Courts, there seemed such safety; in
+his heart there was such happiness; in that moment of waiting for Rupert
+Craven to come he learnt once and for all that, in very _truth_, there
+is no gift, no reward, no joy that can equal "the Peace of God," nor is
+there any temporal danger, disease or agony that can threaten its power.
+
+As the last notes of the clock in Outer Court striking five died away
+Rupert Craven came in. If he had seemed tired and worn-out before, now
+the overwhelming impression that he gave was of an unhappiness from
+which he seemed to have no outlet. He was young enough to be tormented
+by the determination to do the right thing; he was young enough to give
+his whole devotion to his sister; he was young enough to admire, against
+all determination, Olva's presence and prowess and silence; he was young
+enough to be haunted, night and day, by the terrors of his imagination;
+he was young enough to be amazed at finding the world a place of
+Life and Death; he was young enough finally to be staggered that he
+personally should be drawn into the struggle.
+
+But now, just now, as he stood in the doorway, he was simply tired,
+tired out. He pulled himself together with the obvious intention of
+being cold and fierce and judicial. He had cornered Dune at last, he
+had driven him to confession, he was a fine fellow, a kind of Fate, the
+Supreme Judge . . . this is what he doubtless desired to feel; but he
+wished that Dune had not played so wonderful a game that afternoon, that
+Dune did not now--at this moment of complete disaster and ruin--look
+so strangely happy, that he were himself not so utterly wretched and
+conscious of his own failure to do anything as it ought to be done. He
+did his best; he refused to sit down, he remained as still as possible,
+he looked over Dune's head in order to avoid those shining eyes.
+
+The eyes caught him.
+
+"Craven, why have you been badgering the wretched Bunning?"
+
+"I thought you asked me to come here to tell me something--I didn't
+come to answer questions."
+
+"We'll come to my part of it in a moment. But I think it's only fair to
+answer me first."
+
+"What have you got to do with Bunning?"
+
+"That's not, immediately, the point. The thing I want to know is, why
+you should have chosen, during the last week, to go and torment the
+hapless Bunning until you've all but driven him out of his wits."
+
+"I don't see what it's got to do with you."
+
+"It's got this much to do with me--that he came to me this morning with
+a story so absurd that it proves that he can't be altogether right in
+his head. He told me that he had confided this absurd story to you."
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"I don't suppose," Olva went on at last gently, "that we've either of
+us got very much time, and there's a great deal to be done, so let's
+go straight to it. Bunning told me this morning that he declared to you
+yesterday that he--of all people in the world--had murdered Carfax."
+
+"Yes," at last Craven sullenly muttered, "he told me that."
+
+"And of course you didn't believe it?"
+
+"I didn't believe that _he'd_ done it--no. But he knows who _did_ do it.
+He's got all the details. Some one has told him."
+
+Craven was trembling. Olva pushed a chair towards him.
+
+"Look here, you'd better sit down."
+
+Craven sat down.
+
+"I know that some one told him," Olva said quietly, "because I told
+him."
+
+"Then you know who----" Craven's voice was a whisper.
+
+"I know," said Olva, "because it was I who killed Carfax."
+
+Craven took it---the moment for which he'd been waiting so long--in the
+most amazing way.
+
+"Oh!" he cried, like a child who has cut its finger. "Oh! I wish
+you hadn't!" There was the whole of Craven's young struggle with an
+astounding world in that cry.
+
+Then, after that, there was a long silence, and had some one come into
+the room he would have looked at the two men before the fire and have
+supposed that they were gently and comfortably falling off to sleep.
+
+Olva at last said; "Of course I know that you have suspected me for a
+long time. Everything played into your hands. I have done my very utmost
+to prevent your having positive proof of the thing, but that part of the
+business is now done with. You know, and you can do what you please with
+the knowledge."
+
+But, now that the moment had come, Rupert Craven could do nothing with
+it.
+
+"I don't want to do anything," he muttered at last. "I'm not up to doing
+anything. I don't understand it. I'm not the sort of fellow who ought to
+be in this kind of thing at all."
+
+That was how he now saw it, as an unfair advantage that had been taken
+of him. This point of view changed his position to the extent of his now
+almost appealing to Olva to help him out of it.
+
+"Your telling me like that has made it all so difficult. I feel now
+suddenly as though I hated Carfax and hadn't the least objection to
+somebody doing for him. And _that's_ all wrong--murder's an awful
+thing--one ought to feel bad about it." Then finally, with the cry of
+a child in the dark, "But this _isn't_ life, it never _has_ been
+life since that day I heard of Carfax being killed. It's the sort of
+thing--it's been for weeks the sort of thing--that you read of in books
+or see at the Adelphi; and I'm not that kind of fellow. I tell you I've
+been mad all this last month, getting it on the brain, seeing things
+night and day. My one idea was to make you own up to it, but I never
+thought of what was going to happen when you did."
+
+Olva let him work it out.
+
+"Of course I never thought of you for an instant as the man until that
+afternoon when you talked in your sleep. Then I began to think and I
+remembered what Carfax had said about your hating him. Then I went with
+your dog for a walk and we found your matchbox. After that I noticed all
+sorts of things and, at the same time, I saw that you were in love with
+Margaret. That made me mad. My sister is everything in the world to me,
+and it seemed to me that--she should marry a fellow who . . . without
+knowing! I began to be ill with it and yet I hadn't any real reasons to
+bring forward. You wanted me to show my cards, but I wouldn't. Sometimes
+I thought I really _was_ going mad. Then two things made me desperate.
+I saw that you had some secret understanding with my mother and I
+saw--that my sister loved you. We'd always been tremendous pals--we
+three, and it seemed as though every one were siding against me. I saw
+Margaret marrying you and mother letting her--although she knew . . .
+it was awful--Hell!"
+
+He pressed his hands together, his voice shook: "I'd never been in
+anything before--no kind of trouble--and now it seemed to put me right
+on one side. I couldn't see straight. One moment I hated you, then I
+admired you, and the oddest thing of all was that I didn't think about
+the actual thing--your having killed Carfax--at all; everything else was
+so much more important. I just wanted to be sure that you'd done it and
+then--for you to go away and never see any of us again."
+
+Olva smiled.
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+"But it wasn't until the 5th of November--the 'rag' night--that I was
+quite sure. I knew then, when I saw you hitting that fellow, that
+you'd killed Carfax. But, of course, that wasn't proof. Then I noticed
+Bunning. I saw that he was always with you, and of course it was an
+odd sort of friendship for you to have; I could see, too, that he'd got
+something on his mind. I went for him--it was all easy enough--and at
+last he broke down. Then I'd got you----"
+
+"You've got me," said Olva.
+
+Rupert looked him, slowly, in the face. "You're wonderful!" Then he
+added, almost wistfully, "If Margaret hadn't loved you it wouldn't
+really any of it have mattered. I suppose that's very immoral, but
+that's what it comes to. Margaret's everything in the world to me and
+you must tell her."
+
+"Of course I will tell her," Olva said. "That's what I ought to have
+done from the beginning. That's what I was _meant_ to do. But I had
+to be driven to it. What will you do, Craven, if it doesn't matter to
+her--if she doesn't care whether I killed Carfax or no?"
+
+"At least you'll have told her," the boy replied firmly. "At least
+she'll know. Then it's for her to decide. She'll do the right thing," he
+ended proudly.
+
+"And what do you think that is?" Olva asked him.
+
+"I don't know," he answered. "This seems to have altered everything. I
+ought now to be hating you--I don't. I ought to shudder at the sight of
+you--I don't. The Carfax business seems to have slipped right back, to
+be ages ago, not to matter. All I suppose I wanted was to be reassured
+about you--if Margaret loved you. And now I _am_ reassured. I believe
+you know what to do."
+
+"Yes, I know what to do," said Olva. "I'm going away to-morrow for a
+long time. I shall always love Margaret--there can never be any one
+else--but I shall not marry her unless I can come back cleared."
+
+"And who--what--can clear you?"
+
+"Ah! who knows! There'll be something for me to do, I expect. . . . I
+will see Margaret to-morrow--and say good-bye."
+
+Craven's face was white, the eyelids had almost closed, his head hung
+forward as though it were too heavy to support.
+
+"I'm just about done," he murmured, "just about done. It's been all
+a beastly dream . . . and now you're all right--you and Margaret--I
+haven't got to bother about her any more."
+
+
+2
+
+After hall Olva went to Cardillac's room for the last time. No one there
+knew that it was for the last time. It seemed to them all that he was
+just beginning to come out, to be one of them. The football match
+of that afternoon had been wonderful enough for anything, and the
+excitement of it lingered still about Cardillac's rooms, thick now with
+tobacco-smoke, crowded with men, noisy with laughter. The air was so
+strong with smoke, the lights so dim, the voices so many, that Olva
+finding a corner near an open window slipped, it might almost seem, from
+the world. Outside the snow, threatening all day, now fell heavily; the
+old Court took it with a gentleness that showed that the snow was meant
+for it, and the snow covered the grey roofs and the smooth grass with
+a satisfaction that could almost be heard, so deep was it. Just this
+little window-pane between the world that Olva was leaving and the world
+to which he was going!
+
+He caught fragments: "Just that last run--gorgeous--but old Snodky says
+that that horse of his---"
+
+"My dear fellow, you take it from me--they can't get on without
+it. . . . Now a girl I know----"
+
+"They fairly fell upon one another's necks and hugged. Talk of the
+fatted calf! Now if I'd asked the governor----"
+
+Around him there came, with a poignancy, a beauty, that, now that he was
+to lose it all, was like a wound, the wonder of this Cambridge. Then he
+had it, the marvellous moment! On the other side of the window the
+still court, a few twinkling lights, the powdering snow--and here the
+vitality, the energy, the glowing sense of two thousand souls marching
+together upon Life and seizing it, with a shout, lifting it, stepping
+out with it as though it were one long glory! Afterwards what matter?
+There had been the moment, never to be forgotten! Cambridge, the
+beautiful threshold!
+
+For an instant the sense of his own forthcoming journey--away from life,
+as it seemed to him--caught him as he sat there. "What will God do with
+me?"
+
+From the outer world through the whispering snow, he caught the echo of
+the Voice--"My Son . . . My Son."
+
+Soon he heard Lawrence's tremendous laugh--"Where's Dune? Is he here?"
+
+Lawrence found him and sat down beside him.
+
+"By Jupiter, old man, I was frightened for you this afternoon. Until
+half-time you were drugged or somethin', and there was I prayin' to my
+Druids all I was worth to put back into you. And, my word, they did it
+I Talk about that second half--never saw anythin' like it! Have a drink,
+old man!"
+
+"No, thanks. Yes, I didn't seem to get on to it at all at first."
+
+"Well, you're fixed for Queen's Club--just heard--got your Blue all
+right. You and Whymper ought to do fine things between you, although
+stickin' two individualists together on the same wing like that ain't
+exactly my idea, and they don't as a rule settle the team as early
+as this"--Lawrence put a large hand on Olva's knee. "Goin' home for
+Christmas?" he said.
+
+"I expect so."
+
+"Well, yer see--I've got a sort of idea. I wish this vac, you'd come
+an' stay with us for a bit. Good old sorts, my people. Governor quite
+a brainy man--and you could talk, you two. There'll be lots of people
+tumblin' about the place--lots goin' on, and the governor'll like to
+have a sensible feller once in a way . . . and I'd like it too," he
+ended at the bottom of his gruff voice.
+
+"Well, you see;" Olva explained, "it depends a bit on my own father.
+He's all alone up there at our place, and I like to be with him as much
+as possible." Olva looked through the window at the snow, grey against
+the sky, white against the college walls. "I don't quite know where I
+shall be--I think you must let me write to you."
+
+"Oh! _that's_ all right," said Lawrence. "I want you to come along some
+time. You'd like the governor--and if you don't mind listening to an ass
+like me--well, I'd take it as an honour if you'd talk to me a bit."
+
+As Olva looked Lawrence in the eyes he knew that it would be well with
+him if, in his journey through the world, he met again so good a soul.
+Cardillac joined them and they all talked for a little. Then Olva said
+good-night.
+
+He turned for a moment at the door and looked back. Some one at the
+other end of the room was singing "Egypt" to a cracked piano. A babel
+of laughter, of chatter, every now and again men tumbled against one
+another, like cubs in a cave, and rolled upon the floor. Lawrence,
+his feet planted wide apart, was standing in the middle of an admiring
+circle, explaining something very slowly.
+
+"If the old scrum-half," he was saying, "only stood back enough---"
+
+What a splendid lot they were! What a life it was! So much joy in the
+heart of so much beauty! . . . Cambridge!
+
+As he crossed the white court the strains of "Egypt" came, like a
+farewell, through the tumbling snow.
+
+There was still a thing that he must do. He went to say good-bye to
+Bunning. He thought with surprise as he climbed the stairs that this was
+the first time that he'd ever been to Bunning's room. It had always been
+Bunning who had come to him. He would always see that picture---Bunning
+standing, clumsily, awkwardly in the doorway. Poor Bunning!
+
+When Olva came in he was sitting in a very old armchair, staring into
+the fire, his hair on end and his tie above his collar. Olva watched him
+for a moment, the face, the body, everything about him utterly dejected;
+the sound of Olva's entrance did not at once rouse him. When at last he
+saw who it was he started up, his face flushing crimson.
+
+"You!" he cried.
+
+"Yes," said Olva, "I've come to tell you that everything's all right."
+
+For a moment light touched Bunning's eyes, then slowly he shook his
+head.
+
+"Things can't be all right. It's gone much too far."
+
+"My dear Bunning, I've seen Craven. I've told him. I assure you that all
+is well."
+
+"You told him?"
+
+"Everything. That I killed Carfax--he knew it, of course, long ago. He
+went fast asleep at the end of it."
+
+Bunning shook his head again, wearily. "It's all no good. You're
+saying these things to comfort me. Even if Craven didn't do anything he
+wouldn't let you marry his sister now. That's more important than being
+hung."
+
+"If it hadn't been for you," Olva said slowly, "I should have gone on
+wriggling. You've made me come out into the open. 'I'm going to tell
+Miss Craven everything to-morrow."
+
+"What will she do?"
+
+"I don't know. She'll do the right thing. After that I'm going away."
+
+"Going away?"
+
+"Yes. I want to think about things. I've never thought about anything
+except myself. I'm going to tramp it home, and after that I shall find
+out what I'm going to do."
+
+"And Miss Craven?"
+
+"I shall come back to her one day--when I'm fit for it--or rather, _if_
+I'm fit for it. But that's enough about myself. I only wanted to tell
+you, Bunning, before I go that I shall never forget your telling Craven.
+You're lucky to have been able to do so fine a thing. We shall meet
+again later on--I'll see to that."
+
+Bunning, his whole body strung to a desperate appeal, caught Olva's
+hand. "Take me with you, Dune. Take me with you. I'll be your
+servant--anything you like. I'll do anything if you'll let me come. I
+won't be a nuisance--I'll never talk if you don't want me to--I'll do
+everything you tell me--only let me come. You're the only person
+who's ever shown me what I might do. I might be of use if I were with
+you--otherwise----"
+
+"Rot, Bunning. You've got plenty to do here. I'm no good yet for
+anybody. One day perhaps we'll meet again. I'll write to you. I promise
+not to forget you. How could I? and one day I'll come back---"
+
+Bunning moved away, his head banging. "You must think me an awful
+fool--of course you do. I am, I suppose. I'd be awful to be with for
+long at a time--of course I see that. But I don't know what to do. If
+I go home and tell them I'm not going to be a parson it'll be terrible.
+They'll all be at me. Not directly. They won't say anything, but they'll
+have people to talk to me. They'll fill the house--they won't spare any
+pains. And then, at last, being all alone, I shall give in. I know I
+shall, I'm not clever or strong. And I shall be ordained--and then
+it'll be hell. I can see it all. You came into my life and made it all
+different, and now you're going out of it again and it will be worse
+than ever---"
+
+"I won't go out of it," said Olva. "I'll write if you'd like--and
+perhaps we'll meet. I'll be always your friend. And--look here--I'll
+tell Margaret--Miss Craven--about you, and she'll ask you to go and see
+her, and if you two are friends it'll be a kind of alliance between all
+of us, won't it?"
+
+Bunning was happier--"Oh, but she'll think me such an ass!"
+
+"Oh no, she won't, she's much too clever, And, Bunning, don't let
+yourself be driven by people. Stick to the thing you want to do--you'll
+find something all right. Just go on here and wait until you're shown.
+Sit with your ears open----"
+
+Bunning filled his mouth with toast. "If you'll write to me and keep up
+with me I'll do anything."
+
+"And one thing--Don't tell any one I'm going. I shall just slip out of
+college early the day after to-morrow. I don't want any one to know.
+It's nobody's affair but mine."
+
+Then he held out his hand--"Good-bye, Bunning, old man."
+
+"Good-bye," said Bunning.
+
+When Olva had gone he sat down by the fire again, staring.
+
+Some hours afterwards he spoke, suddenly, aloud: "I can stand the lot of
+them now."
+
+Then he went to bed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+OLVA AND MARGARET
+
+1
+
+On the next evening the sun set with great splendour. The frost had come
+and hardened the snow and all day the sky bad been a pale frozen blue,
+only on the horizon fading into crocus yellow.
+
+The sun was just vanishing behind the grey roofs when Olva went to
+Rocket Road. All day he had been very busy destroying old letters and
+papers and seeing to everything so that he should leave no untidiness
+nor carelessness behind him. Now it was all over. To-morrow morning,
+with enough money but not very much, and with an old rucksack that he
+had once had on a walking tour, he would set out. He did not question
+this decision--he knew that it was what he was intended to do--but it
+was the way that Margaret would take his confession that would make that
+journey hard or easy.
+
+He did not know--that was the surprising thing--how she would take it.
+He knew her so little. He only knew that he loved her and that she would
+do, without flinching, the thing that she felt was right. Oh! but it
+would be difficult!
+
+The house, the laurelled drive, the little road, the distant moor and
+wood--these things had to-night a gentle air. Over the moor the setting
+sun flung a red flame; the woods burned black; the laurels were heavy
+with snow and a robin hopped down the drive as Olva passed.
+
+He found Margaret in the drawing-room, and here, too, he fancied that
+there was more light and air than on other days.
+
+When the old woman had left the room he suddenly caught Margaret to him
+and kissed her as though he would never let her go. She clung to him
+with her hands. Then he stood gravely away from her.
+
+"There," he said, "that is the last time that I may kiss you before I
+have told you what it is that I have come here to say. But first may I
+go up to your mother for a moment?"
+
+"Yes," Margaret said, "if you will not be very long. I do not think that
+I can have much more patience." Then she added more slowly, gazing into
+his face, "Rupert said last night that you would have something to tell
+me to-day. I have been waiting all day for you to come. But Rupert was
+his old self last night, and he talked to mother and has made her happy
+again. Oh! I think that everything is going to be right!"
+
+"I will soon come down to you," he said.
+
+Mrs. Craven's long dark room was lit by the setting sun; beyond her
+windows the straight white fields lifted shining splendour to the stars
+already twinkling in the pale sky. Candles were lit on a little black
+table by her sofa and the fire was red deep in its cavernous setting.
+
+He stood for a moment in the dim room facing the setting sun, and the
+light of the fire played about his feet and the pale glow that stole up
+into the evening from the snowy fields touched his face.
+
+She knew as she looked at him that something bad given him great peace.
+
+"I've come to say good-bye," he said. Then he sat down by her side.
+
+"No," she said, smiling, "you mustn't go. We want you--Rupert and
+Margaret and I. . . ." Then softly, as though to herself, she repeated
+the words, "Rupert and Margaret and I."
+
+"Dear Mrs. Craven, one day I will come back. But tell me, Rupert spoke
+to you last night?"
+
+"Yes, he has made me so very happy. Last night we were the same again as
+we used to be, and even, I think, more than we have ever been. Rupert is
+growing up."
+
+"Yes--Rupert is growing up. Did he tell you why he had, during these
+weeks, been so strange and unhappy?"
+
+"No, he gave me no real explanation. But I think that it was the
+terrible death of his friend Mr. Carfax--I think that that had preyed
+upon his mind."
+
+"No, Mrs. Craven, it was more than that. He was unhappy because he knew
+that it was I that had killed Carfax."
+
+He saw a little movement pass over her--her hand trembled against her
+dress. For some time they sat together there in silence, and the red sun
+slipped down behind the fields; the room was suddenly dark except for
+the yellow pool of light that the candles made and for the strange gleam
+by the window that came from the snow.
+
+At last she said, "Now I understand--now I understand."
+
+"I killed him in anger--it was quite fair. No one had any idea except
+Rupert, but everything helped to show him that it was I. When he saw
+that I loved Margaret he was very unhappy. He saw that we had some kind
+of understanding together and he thought that I had told you and that
+you sympathize with me. I am going down now to tell Margaret."
+
+"Poor, poor Olva." It was the first time that she had called him by his
+Christian name. She took his hand. "Both of us together--the same thing.
+I have paid, God knows I have paid, and soon, I hope, it will be over.
+But your life is before you."
+
+He looked out at the evening fields. "I'm going down now to tell
+Margaret. And tomorrow I shall set out. I will not come back to Margaret
+until I know that I am cleared--but I want you, while I am away, to
+think of me sometimes and to talk of me sometimes to Margaret. And one
+day, perhaps, I shall know that I may come back."
+
+She put her thin hands about his head and drew it down to her and kissed
+him.
+
+"There will never be a time when you are not in my mind," she said. "I
+love you as though you were my own son. I had hoped that you would be
+here often, but now I see that it is right for you to go. I know that
+Margaret will wait for you. Meanwhile an old woman loves you."
+
+He kissed her and left her.
+
+At the door through the dark room he heard her thin voice: "May God
+bless you and keep you."
+
+He went to perform his hardest task.
+
+
+2
+
+It was the harder in that for a little while he seemed to be left
+absolutely alone. The room was dark save for the leaping light of the
+fire in the deep stone fireplace, and as he saw Margaret standing there
+waiting for him, desperately courageous, he only knew that he loved her
+so badly that, for a little while, he could only stand there staring at
+her, twisting his hands together, speechless.
+
+"Well," at last she said. "Come and sit down and tell me all about it."
+But her voice trembled a little and her eyes were wide, frightened,
+begging him not to hurt her.
+
+He sat down near her, before the fire, and she instinctively, as though
+she knew that this was a very tremendous matter, stood away from him,
+her hands clasped together against her black dress.
+
+Suddenly now, before he spoke, he realized what it would mean to him
+if she could not forgive what he had done. He had imagined it once
+before--the slow withdrawal of her eyes, the gradual tightening of the
+lips, the little instinctive movement away from him.
+
+If he must go out into the world, having lost her, he thought that he
+could never endure, God or no God, the long dreary years in front of
+him.
+
+At last he was brave: "Margaret--at first I want you to know that I
+love you with all my heart and soul and body; that nothing that can
+ever happen to me can ever alter that love--that I am yours, entirely,
+always. And then I want you to know that I am not worthy to love you,
+that I ought never to have asked you to love me, that I ought to have
+gone away the first time that I saw you."
+
+She made a little loving, protecting movement towards him with her hands
+and then let them drop against her dress again.
+
+"I ought never to have loved you--because--only a day or two before I
+met you--I had killed Carfax, Rupert's friend."
+
+The words as they fell seemed to him like the screams that iron bolts
+give as a gate is barred.
+
+He whispered slowly the words again: "I killed Carfax"--and then he
+covered his eyes with his hands so that he might not see her face.
+
+The silence seemed eternal--and she had made no movement. To fill that
+silence he went on desperately--
+
+"I had always hated him--there were many reasons--and one day we met
+in Sannet Wood, quarrelled, and I hit him. The blow killed him. I don't
+think I meant to kill him, but I wasn't sorry afterwards--I have never
+felt remorse for _that_. There have been other things. . . .
+
+"Soon afterwards I met you--I loved you at once--you know that I
+did--and I could not tell you. Oh! I tried--I struggled, pretty poor
+struggling--but I could not. I thought that it was all over, that he
+was dead and nobody knew. But God was wiser than that--Rupert knew. He
+suspected and then he grew more sure, and at last he was quite certain.
+Yesterday, after the football match, I told him and I promised him that
+I would tell you . . . and I have told you."
+
+Silence again--and then suddenly there was movement, and there were arms
+about him and a voice in his ear--"Poor, poor Olva . . . dear Olva . . .
+how terrible it must have been!"
+
+He could only then catch her and hold her, and furiously press her
+against him. "Oh, my dear, my dear--you don't mind!"
+
+They stayed together, like that, for a long time.
+
+He could not think clearly, but in the dim recesses of his mind he saw
+that they had all--Mrs. Craven, Margaret, Rupert--taken it in the same
+kind of way. Could it be that Margaret and Rupert living, although
+unconsciously, in the shadow all their lives of just this crime,
+breathing the air of it, and breathing it too with the other air of love
+and affection--that they had thus, all unknowing, been quietly prepared?
+
+Or had they, each of them, their especial reason for excusing it?
+Mrs. Craven from her great knowledge, Rupert from his great weariness,
+Margaret from her great love?
+
+At last Margaret got up and sat down in a chair away from him.
+
+"Olva dear, you ought to have told me. If we had married and you had not
+told me---"
+
+"I was so terribly afraid of losing you."
+
+"But it gives me now," her voice was almost triumphant, "something to
+share with you, something to help you in, something to fight with you.
+Now I can show you how much I love you.
+
+"How could you have supposed that I would mind? Do you think that a
+woman, if she loves a man, cares for anything that he may do? If you
+had killed a hundred men in Sannet Wood I would have helped you to bury
+them. The thing that a woman demands most of love is that she may prove
+it. I know that murder has a dreadful sound--but to meet your enemy face
+to face, to strike him down because you hated him--" Her voice rose, her
+eyes flashed--she raised her arms--"You must pay for it, Olva--but we
+shall pay together."
+
+He knew now, as he watched her, that he had a harder thing to do than he
+had believed possible.
+
+"No," he said, and his eyes could not face hers, "we can't pay
+together--I must go alone."
+
+She laughed a little. "How can you go alone if we are together?"
+
+"We shall not be together. I go away, alone, to-morrow."
+
+He knew that her eyes were then, very slowly, searching his face. She
+said, gently, after a moment's pause, "Tell me, Olva, what you mean. Of
+course we are going together."
+
+"Oh, it is so hard for me!" He was fighting now as he had never fought.
+Why not, even at this last moment, in spite of yesterday, defy God and
+stay with her and keep her? In that moment of hesitation he suffered so
+that the sweat came to his forehead and his eyes were filled with pain
+and then were suddenly tired and dull.
+
+But he came out, and seemed now to stand above the room and look down on
+his body and her body and to be filled with a great pity for them both.
+
+"Margaret dear, it's very hard for me to tell you. Will you be patient
+with me and let me put things as clearly as I can--as _I_ see them?"
+
+She burst out, "Olva, you mustn't leave me, I---" Then she used all her
+strength to bring control. Very quietly she ended--"Yes, Olva, tell me
+everything."
+
+"It is so difficult because it is about God, and we all of us feel, and
+rightly I expect, that it is priggish to talk about God at all. And then
+I don't know whether I can give you everything as it happened because
+it was all so unsubstantial and at the end of it any one might say 'But
+this is nothing--nothing at all. You've been hysterical, nervous--that's
+the meaning of it. You've nothing to show.' And yet if all the world
+were to say that to me I should still have no doubt. I know, as I know
+that we are sitting here, as I know that I love you, that what I say is
+true."
+
+She brought her chair close to him and then put her band in his and
+waited.
+
+"After I had killed Carfax--after his body had fallen and the wood
+was very silent, I was suddenly conscious of God. I can't explain that
+better. I can only say that I knew that some one had watched me, I knew
+that the world would never be the same place again because some one had
+watched me, and I knew that it was not because I had done wrong, but
+because I had put myself into a new set of conditions that life would be
+different now. I knew these things, and I went back to College.
+
+"I had never thought about God before, never at all. I had been entirely
+heathen. Now I was sure of His existence in the way that one is sure of
+wood when one touches it or water when one drinks it.
+
+"But I did not know at all what kind of God He was. I went to a Revival
+meeting, but He was not there. He was not in the College Chapel. He was
+not in any forms or ceremonies that I could discover. He might choose
+to appear to other men in those different ways but not to me. Then a
+fellow, Lawrence, told me about some old worship---Druids and their
+altars--but He was not there. And all those days I was increasingly
+conscious that there was some one who would not let me alone. It
+fastened itself in my mind gradually as a Pursuit, and it seemed to me
+too that, as the days passed, I began slowly to understand the nature
+of the Pursuer--that He was kind and tender but also relentless,
+remorseless. I was frightened. I flung myself into College things--games
+and every kind of noise because I was so afraid of silence. And all the
+time some one urged me to obedience. That was all that He demanded, that
+I should be passive and obey His orders. I would have given in, I think,
+very soon, but I met you."
+
+Her hand tightened in his and then, because he felt that her body was
+trembling, he put his arm round her and held her.
+
+"I knew then when I loved you that I was being urged, by this God, to
+confess everything to you. I became frightened; I should have trusted
+you, but it was so great a risk. You were all that I had and if I
+lost you life would have gone too. Those aren't mere words. . . . I
+struggled, I tried every way of escape. And then everything betrayed me.
+Rupert began to suspect, then to be sure. Whether I flung myself into
+everything or hid in my room it was the same--God came closer and
+closer. It was a perfectly real experience and I could see Him as a
+great Shadow--not unkind, loving me, but relentless. Then the day came
+that I proposed to you and I fainted. I knew then that I was not to be
+allowed so easy a happiness. Still I struggled, but now God seemed to
+have shut off all the real world and only left me the unreal one--and I
+began to be afraid that I was going mad."
+
+She suddenly bent down and kissed him; she stayed then, until he had
+finished, with her head buried in his coat.
+
+"It wasn't any good--I knew all the time that it could only end one
+way.
+
+"Everything betrayed me, every one left me. I thought every moment that
+Rupert would tell me. Then, one night when I was hardly sane, I told a
+man, Bunning--a queer odd creature who was the last kind of person to be
+told. He, in a fit of mad self-sacrifice, told Rupert that _he'd_ killed
+Carfax, and then of course it was all over.
+
+"I suddenly yielded. It was as though God caught me and held me. I saw
+Him, I heard Rim--yesterday--in the middle of the football. I know that
+it was so. After that there could be only one thing--Obedience. I knew
+that I must tell you. I have told you. I know, too, that I must go out
+into the world, alone, and work out my duty . . . and then, oh! then, I
+will come back."
+
+When he had finished, on his shoulder he seemed to feel once more a hand
+gently resting.
+
+At last she raised her head, and clutching his hand as though she would
+never let it go, spoke:--
+
+"Olva, Olva, I don't understand. I don't think I believe in any God.
+And, dear, see--it is all so natural. Thinking about what you had
+done, thinking of it all alone, preyed on your nerves. Because Rupert
+suspected you made it worse. You imagined things--everything. That is
+all--Olva, really that is all."
+
+"Margaret, don't make it harder for both of us. I must go. There is no
+question. I don't suppose that any one can see any one else's spiritual
+experiences--one must be alone in that. Margaret dear, if I stayed with
+you now--if we married--the Pursuit would begin again. God would hold me
+at last--and then one day you would find that I had gone away--I would
+have been driven--there would be terror for both of us then."
+
+She slipped on to her knees and caught his hands.
+
+"This is all unreal--utterly unreal. But our love for each other, that
+is the only thing that can matter for either of us. You have lived in
+your thoughts these weeks, imagined things, but think of what you do
+if you leave me. You are all I have--you have become my world--I can't
+live, I can't live, Olva, without you."
+
+"I must go. I must find what God is."
+
+"But listen, dear. You come to me to confess something. You find that
+what you have done matters nothing to me. You say that you love me more
+than ever, and, in the same moment, that you are going to leave me. Is
+it fair to me? You give no reason. You do not know where you are going
+or what you intend to do. You can give no definite explanation."
+
+"There is no explanation except that by what I did in Sannet Wood that
+afternoon I put myself out of touch with human society until I had done
+something _for_ human society. God has been telling me for many days
+that I owe a debt. I have tried to avoid paying that debt. I tried
+to escape Him because I knew that he demanded that I must pay my debt
+before I could come to you. I see this as clearly as I saw yesterday the
+high white clouds above the football field. God now is as real to me as
+you are. It is as though for the rest of my life I must live in a house
+with two persons. We cannot all live together until certain conditions
+are granted. I go to make those conditions possible. Because I have
+broken the law I am an outlaw. I am impelled to win my way back to
+citizenship again. God will show me."
+
+"But this is air--all nerves. God is nothing. God does not exist."
+
+"God _does_ exist. I must work out His order and then I will come back
+to you."
+
+She began to be frightened. She caught his coat in her hands, and
+desperately pleaded. Then she saw his white set face, and the way that
+his hands gripped the chair, and it was as though she had suddenly found
+herself alone in the room.
+
+"Olva, don't leave me, don't leave me, Olva. I can't live without you.
+I don't care what you've done. I'll bear everything with you. I'll come
+away with you. I'll do anything if only you will let me be with you."
+
+"No, I must go alone."
+
+"But it can't matter--it can't matter. I'm so unimportant. You shall do
+what you feel is your duty--only let me be there."
+
+"No, I must go alone."
+
+She began to cry, bitter, miserable, sobbing, sitting on the floor, away
+from him. Her crying was the only sound in the room.
+
+He bent and touched her--"Margaret dear--you make it so hard."
+
+At last, in that strange beautiful way that she had, control seemed
+suddenly to come to her; she stood up and looked as though she had, in
+that brief moment, lived a thousand years of sorrow.
+
+"You will come back?"
+
+"I swear that I will come back to you."
+
+"I--I--will--wait for you."
+
+There, in the dim, unreal room, as they had stood once before, now,
+standing, they were wrapt together. They were very young to feel such
+depths of tragedy, to touch such heights of beauty. They were a long
+time there together.
+
+"Margaret darling, you know that I will come back."
+
+"I know that you will come back."
+
+"Olva!"
+
+"Margaret!"
+
+He left her.
+
+Then, standing with outstretched arms, alone there, she who had but now
+denied the Pursuer, cried to the dark room--
+
+"God, God--send him back to me!"
+
+Some one promised her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+FIRST CHAPTER
+
+The sun was rising, hard and red, over Sannet Wood and the white frozen
+flats, when Olva Dune set out. . . .
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Prelude to Adventure, by Hugh Walpole
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