The Prelude to Adventure Part 17

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 pa.s.sed 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 att.i.tude 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 pa.s.sion and he flung out his hand as though to ward off Olva from him.

"You to marry my sister! My G.o.d, 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."