ith. 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.

"Your telling me like that has made it all so difficult. I feel now
suddenly as though I hated Carfax and hadn't the least objection to
somebody doing for him. And _that's_ all wrong--murder's an awful
thing--one ought to feel bad about it." Then finally, with the cry of
a child in the dark, "But this _isn't_ life, it never _has_ been
life since that day I heard of Carfax being killed. It's the sort of
thing--it's been for weeks the sort of thing--that you read of in books
or see at the Adelphi; and I'm not that kind of fellow. I tell you I've
been mad all this last month, getting it on the brain, seeing things
night and day. My one idea was to make you own up to it, but I never
thought of what was going to happen when you did."

Olva let him work it out.

"Of course I never thought of you for an instant as the man until that
afternoon when you talked in your sleep. Then I began to think and I
remembered what Carfax had said about your hating him. Then I went with
your dog for a walk and we found your matchbox. After that I noticed all
sorts of things and, at the same time, I saw that you were in love with
Margaret. That made me mad. My sister is everything in the world to me,
and it seemed to me that--she should marry a fellow who . . . without
knowing! I began to be ill with it and yet I hadn't any real reasons to
bring forward. You wanted me to show my cards, but I wouldn't. Sometimes
I thought I really _was_ going mad. Then two things made me desperate.
I saw that you had some secret understanding with my mother and I
saw--that my sister loved you. We'd always been tremendous pals--we
three, and it seemed as though every one were siding against me. I saw
Margaret marrying you and mother letting her--although she knew . . .
it was awful--Hell!"

He pressed his hands together, his voice shook: "I'd never been in
anything before--no kind of trouble--and now it seemed to put me right
on one side. I coul