"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 n.o.body'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 pa.s.sed.

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 pa.s.s 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, G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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, G.o.d or no G.o.d, the long dreary years in front of him.