t stick it until then; you won't be bothered with
me after that."

"You're going away?"

"I don't know--it depends."

"I don't know what I should do if you went. To have to stand that awful
secret all alone . . . only me knowing. Oh! I couldn't! I couldn't! and
now that Craven--"

"Craven knows nothing. He doesn't even suspect anything. See here,
Bunning"--Olva crossed over to him and put his hand on his shoulder.
"Can't you understand that your behaviour makes me wish that I hadn't
told you, whereas if you care as you say you do you ought to want to
show me how you can carry it, to prove to me that I was right to tell
you---"

"Yes, I know. But Craven---"

"Craven knows nothing."

"But he does." Bunning's voice became shrill and his fat hand shook on
Olva's arm. "There's something I haven't told you. This morning in Outer
Court he stopped me."

"Craven stopped you?"

"Yes. There was no one about. I was going along to my rooms and he met
me and he said: 'Hullo, Bunning.'"

"Well?"

"I'd been thinking of it--of his knowing, I mean--all night, so I was
dreadfully startled, dreadfully startled. I'm afraid I showed it."

"Get on. What did he say?"

"He said: 'Hullo, Bunning!'"

"Yes, you've told me that. What else?"

"I said 'Hullo!' I was dreadfully startled. I don't think he'd ever
spoken to me before. And then he looked so strange--wild, as though he
hadn't slept, and white, and his eyes moved all the time. I'm afraid he
saw that I was startled."

"Do get on. What else did he ask you?"

"He asked me whether I'd enjoyed last night. He said: 'You were with
Dune, weren't you?' He cried, as though he wasn't speaking to me at all:
'That's an odd sort of friend for you to have.' I ought to have been
angry I suppose, but I was shaking all over . . . yes . . . well . . .
then he said: 'I thought you were in with all those pi men,' and I just
couldn't say anything at all--I was shaking so. He must have thought I
looked very odd."

"I'm sure he did," said Olva drily. "Well it won't be many days before
_you_ give the show away--_that's_ certain."

What could have made him tell the fellow? What madness? What---?

But Bunning caught on to his sleeve.

"No, no, you mustn't say that, Dune, please, you mustn't. I'm going to
do my best, I am really. But his coming suddenly like that, just when
I'd been thinking. . . . But it's awful. I told you if any one suspected
it would make it so hard---"

"Look here,