nty--the greatest half the
'Varsity's ever had, I suppose."

"It's a good thing this mud isn't thicker. It won't make the ball bad.
That game against Monkstown the other day! My word. . . ."

But Olva was not listening. It seemed to him now that two separate
personalities were divided in him so sharply that it was impossible to
reconcile them.

There was Olva Dune concentrating all his will, his mentality, upon the
game that he was about to play. This was his afternoon. After it there
would be darkness, death, what you will--parting from Margaret--all
purely physical emotions.

The other Olva felt nothing physical. The game, confession to Rupert,
trial, imprisonment, even separation from Margaret, all these things
were nothing in comparison with some great business that was in progress
behind it all, as real life may go on behind the painted back cloth of a
stage. Here were amazing happenings, although at present he was confused
and bewildered by them. It was not that Olva was, actually, at the
instant conscious of actual impressions, but rather that great emotions,
great surprising happiness, seemed to shine on some horizon. It was as
though something had said to his soul, "Presently you will feel a joy, a
splendour, that you had never in your wildest thoughts imagined."

The pursuit was almost at an end. He was now enveloped, enfolded.
Already everything to him--even his love for Margaret--was trivial in
comparison with the effect of some atmosphere that was beginning to hem
him in on every side.

But against all this was the other Olva--the Olva who desired physical
strength, love, freedom, health.

Well, let it all be as confusing as it might, he would play his game.
But as he walked into the Pavilion he knew that the prelude to his real
life had only a few more hours to run. . . .

4

As he passed, with the rest of the team, up the field, he observed two
things only; one thing was Margaret, standing on the left side of the
field just below the covered stand--he could see her white face and her
little black hard hat.

The other thing was that on the horizon where the wall at the further
end of the field cut the sky there were piled, as though resting on the
top of the wall, high white clouds. For a moment these clouds, piled in
mountain shape of an intense whiteness with round curving edges, held
his eyes because they exactly resembled those clouds that had hung above
him on the day of his walk to San