hing, thanks. . . . Good-night."

"No, but wait a minute. Come up to my rooms and have some coffee. I
haven't seen you for days."

A fortnight ago Craven would have accepted with joy. Now he shook his
head.

"No, thanks. I'm tired: I haven't been sleeping very well."

"Why's that? Overwork?"

"No, it's nothing. I don't know why it is."

"You ought to see somebody. I know what not sleeping means."

"Why? . . . Are _you_ sleeping badly?" Craven's eyes met Olva's.

"No, I'm splendid, thanks. But I had a bout of insomnia years ago. I
shan't forget it."

"You _look_ all right." Cravan's eyes were busily searching Olva's face.
Then suddenly they dropped.

"I'm all right," he said hurriedly. "Tired, that's all."

"Why do you never come and see me now?"

"Oh, I will come--sometime. I'm busy."

"What about?"

Olva stood, a stern dark figure, against the snow.

"Oh, just busy." Craven suddenly looked up as though he were going to
ask Olva a question. Then he apparently changed his mind, muttered a
good-night and disappeared round the corner of the building.

Olva was alone in the Court. From some room came the sound of voices and
laughter, from some other room a piano--some one called a name in Little
Court. A sheet of stars drew the white light from the snow to heaven.

Olva turned very slowly and entered his black stairway.

In his heart he was crying, "How long can I stand this? Another day?
Another hour? This loneliness. . . . I must break it. I must tell some
one. I _must_ tell some one."

As he entered his room he thought that he saw against the farther wall
an old gilt mirror and in the light of it a dark figure facing him; a
voice, heavy with some great overburdening sorrow, spoke to him.

"How terrible a thing it is to be alone with God!"

CHAPTER IX

REVELATION OF BUNNING (II)

1

The next day the frost broke, and after a practice game on the Saul's
ground, in preparation for a rugby match at the end of the week, Olva,
bathed and feeling physically a fine, overwhelming fitness, went to see
Margaret Craven.

This sense of his physical well-being was extraordinary. Mentally he
was nearly beaten, almost at the limit of his endurance. Spiritually the
catastrophe hovered more closely above him at every advancing moment,
but, physically, he had never, in all his life before, felt such
magnificent health. He had been sleeping badly now for weeks. He had
been eating very little, but he felt