"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.