She made a little loving, protecting movement towards him with her hands and then let them drop against her dress again.
"I ought never to have loved you—because—only a day or two before I met you—I had killed Carfax, Rupert's friend."
The words as they fell seemed to him like the screams that iron bolts give as a gate is barred.
He whispered slowly the words again: "I killed Carfax"—and then he covered his eyes with his hands so that he might not see her face.
The silence seemed eternal—and she had made no movement. To fill that silence he went on desperately—
"I had always hated him—there were many reasons—and one day we met in Sannet Wood, quarrelled, and I hit him. The blow killed him. I don't think I meant to kill him, but I wasn't sorry afterwards—I have never felt remorse for that. There have been other things. . . .
"Soon afterwards I met you—I loved you at once—you know that I did—and I could not tell you. Oh! I tried—I struggled, pretty poor struggling—but I could not. I thought that it was all over, that he was dead and nobody knew. But God was wiser than that—Rupert knew. He suspected and then he grew more sure, and at last he was quite certain. Yesterday, after the football match, I told him and I promised him that I would tell you . . . and I have told you."
Silence again—and then suddenly there was movement, and there were arms about him and a voice in his ear—"Poor, poor Olva . . . dear Olva . . . how terrible it must have been!"
He could only then catch her and hold her, and furiously press her against him. "Oh, my dear, my dear—you don't mind!"
They stayed together, like that, for a long time.