"Old Crow?" This threw her out for an instant and she went back to her conception of Raven as a victim of complexes of which Old Crow was chief. "It's no time for dwelling on things that are past and gone. You think far too much about Old Crow. It weakens you."
"Old Crow," said Raven quietly, "is the chap you and I need here to-night. I'd like mighty well to sit down and talk it over with him. So would you, if you knew him better. Old Crow went through what you and I are going through now. He found the world a deuced puzzling place and he didn't see the conventional God as any sort of a solution. And then—I don't suppose you're going to bed right off. You won't feel like sleep?"
"Bed!" she flung out. "Sleep!"
"Then look here, Milly," said Raven, "you do what I tell you." He opened a drawer in his desk and took out the mottled book. "Here's Old Crow's journal. You sit here by the fire and read it while I take Nan's place and send her off to bed. And if it doesn't give you an idea Old Crow's got his mind on us to-night, wherever he is, I'm mistaken."
He brought her the book. She took it, with no interest, leaving it unopened on her knee.
"Wherever he is," she repeated, not precisely curious, but as if she might be on the verge of it when she again had time. "I didn't know you believed in immortality."
"I didn't, either," said Raven. "But," he added, "I believe in Old Crow."
She was holding the book mechanically and he left her sitting with it still unopened and went in to Dick. He found him restless, not in any movement of his body but in the glance of his dilated eyes. Nan looked up, grave, steady, gone back, as Raven saw, to her trained habit of action, emotionless, concentrated on the moment.
"You'd better go up to bed," said Raven. "I'll stay now. He can have you to-morrow."
"He can have me all the time," said Nan clearly, and Dick's eyes turned upon her with an indifferent sort of query. How much did she mean by that? It sounded as if she meant everything, and yet Raven, his heart constricting, knew it might not be more than impetuous sacrifice, the antidote given in haste. But now Dick spoke and Raven bent to him, for either he was too weak to speak clearly or he was saving himself.