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. . . .

THE END