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.