Part 24 (1/2)

Oh! these last two days! what I've suffered!”

Now for the first time in the history of the whole affair Olva Dune may be said to have felt sheer physical terror, not terror of the mist, of the road, of the darkness, of the night, but terror of physical things--of the loss of light and air, of the denial of food, of physical death. . . . For a moment the room swam about him. He heard, in the Court below him, some men laughing--a dog was barking. Then he saw that Bunning was on the edge of hysteria. The bedmaker would come in and find him laughing--as he had laughed once before.

Olva stilled the room with a tremendous effort--the floor sank, the table and chairs tossed no longer.

”Now, Bunning, tell me quickly. They'll be here to lay lunch in a minute. What have you told Craven? And why have you told him anything?”

”I told him--yesterday--that I did it.”

”That _you_ did it?”

”Yes, that I murdered Carfax.”

”My G.o.d! You fool! . . . You fool!”

A most dangerous thing this devotion of a fool.

But, strangely, Olva's words roused in Bunning a kind of protest, so that he pulled his eyes back into their sockets, steadied his hands, held his boots firmly to the floor, and, quite softly, with a little note of urgency in it as though he were pleading before a great court, said--

”Yes, I know. But he drove me to it; Craven did. I thought it was the only way to save you. He's been at me now for days; ever since that time he stopped me in Outer Court and asked me why I was a friend of yours.

He's been coming to my room--at night--at all sorts of times--and just sitting there and looking at me.”

Olva came across and touched Bunning's arm: ”Poor Bunning! What a brute I was to tell you!”

”He used to come and say nothing--just look at me. I couldn't stand it, you know. I'm not a clever man--not at all clever--and I used to try and think of things to talk about, but it always seemed to come back to Carfax--every time.”

”And then--when you told me the other day about your caring for Miss Craven--I felt that I must do something. I'd always puzzled, you know, why I should be brought into it at all. I didn't seem to be the sort of fellow who'd be likely to be mixed up with a man like you. I felt that it must be with some purpose, you know, and now--now--I thought I suddenly saw--

”I don't know--I thought he'd believe me--I thought he'd tell the police and they'd arrest me--and that'd be the end of it.”

Here Bunning took a handkerchief and began miserably to gulp and sniff.

”But, good heavens!” Olva cried, ”you didn't suppose that they wouldn't discover it all at the police-station in a minute! Two questions and you'd be done! Why, man----!”

”I didn't know. I thought it would be all right. I was all alone that afternoon, out for a walk by myself--and you'd told me how you did it.

I'd only got to tell the same story. I couldn't see how any one should know---I couldn't really . . . I don't suppose”--many gulps--”that I thought much about that--I only wanted to save you.”

How bright and wonderful the day! How full of colour the world! And it was all over, all absolutely, finally done.

”Now--look here, stop that sniffing--it's all right. I'm not angry with you. Just tell me exactly what you said to Craven yesterday when you told him.”

Bunning thought. ”Well, he came into my room quite early after my breakfast. I was reading my Bible, as I used to, you know, every morning, to see whether I could be interested again, as I used to be. I was finding I couldn't when Craven came in. He looked queer. He's been looking queerer every day, and I don't think he's been sleeping. Then he began to ask me questions, not actually about anything, but odd questions like, Where was I born? and Why did I read the Bible? and things like that--just to make me comfortable--and his eyes were so funny, red and small and never still. Then he got to you.”

The misery now in Bunning's eyes was more than Olva could bear. It was dumb, uncomprehending misery, the unhappiness of something caught in a trap--and that trap this glittering dancing world!

”Then he got to you! He always asked me the same questions. How long I'd known you?--Why we got on together when we were so different?--silly meaningless things--and he didn't listen to my answers. He was always thinking of the next things to ask and that frightened me so.”

The misery in Bunning's eyes grew deeper.

”Suddenly I thought I saw what was meant--that I was intended to take it on myself. It made me warm all over, the though of it. . . . Now, I was going to do something . . . that's how I saw it!”