He found Margaret in the drawing-room, and here, too, he fancied that there was more light and air than on other days.
When the old woman had left the room he suddenly caught Margaret to him and kissed her as though he would never let her go. She clung to him with her hands. Then he stood gravely away from her.
"There," he said, "that is the last time that I may kiss you before I have told you what it is that I have come here to say. But first may I go up to your mother for a moment?"
"Yes," Margaret said, "if you will not be very long. I do not think that I can have much more patience." Then she added more slowly, gazing into his face, "Rupert said last night that you would have something to tell me to-day. I have been waiting all day for you to come. But Rupert was his old self last night, and he talked to mother and has made her happy again. Oh! I think that everything is going to be right!"
Mrs. Craven's long dark room was lit by the setting sun; beyond her windows the straight white fields lifted shining splendour to the stars already twinkling in the pale sky. Candles were lit on a little black table by her sofa and the fire was red deep in its cavernous setting.
He stood for a moment in the dim room facing the setting sun, and the light of the fire played about his feet and the pale glow that stole up into the evening from the snowy fields touched his face.
She knew as she looked at him that something bad given him great peace.
"I've come to say good-bye," he said. Then he sat down by her side.
"No," she said, smiling, "you mustn't go. We want you--Rupert and Margaret and I. . . ." Then softly, as though to herself, she repeated the words, "Rupert and Margaret and I."
"Dear Mrs. Craven, one day I will come back. But tell me, Rupert spoke to you last night?"
"Yes, he has made me so very happy. Last night we were the same again as we used to be, and even, I think, more than we have ever been. Rupert is growing up."
"Yes--Rupert is growing up. Did he tell you why he had, during these weeks, been so strange and unhappy?"
"No, he gave me no real explanation. But I think that it was the terrible death of his friend Mr. Carfax--I think that that had preyed upon his mind."
"No, Mrs. Craven, it was more than that. He was unhappy because he knew that it was I that had killed Carfax."