"I won't go out of it," said Olva. "I'll write if you'd like--and perhaps we'll meet. I'll be always your friend. And--look here--I'll tell Margaret--Miss Craven--about you, and she'll ask you to go and see her, and if you two are friends it'll be a kind of alliance between all of us, won't it?"
Bunning was happier--"Oh, but she'll think me such an ass!"
"Oh no, she won't, she's much too clever, And, Bunning, don't let yourself be driven by people. Stick to the thing you want to do--you'll find something all right. Just go on here and wait until you're shown. Sit with your ears open----"
Bunning filled his mouth with toast. "If you'll write to me and keep up with me I'll do anything."
"And one thing--Don't tell any one I'm going. I shall just slip out of college early the day after to-morrow. I don't want any one to know. It's nobody's affair but mine."
Then he held out his hand--"Good-bye, Bunning, old man."
When Olva had gone he sat down by the fire again, staring.
Some hours afterwards he spoke, suddenly, aloud: "I can stand the lot of them now."
On the next evening the sun set with great splendour. The frost had come and hardened the snow and all day the sky bad been a pale frozen blue, only on the horizon fading into crocus yellow.
The sun was just vanishing behind the grey roofs when Olva went to Rocket Road. All day he had been very busy destroying old letters and papers and seeing to everything so that he should leave no untidiness nor carelessness behind him. Now it was all over. To-morrow morning, with enough money but not very much, and with an old rucksack that he had once had on a walking tour, he would set out. He did not question this decision--he knew that it was what he was intended to do--but it was the way that Margaret would take his confession that would make that journey hard or easy.
He did not know--that was the surprising thing--how she would take it. He knew her so little. He only knew that he loved her and that she would do, without flinching, the thing that she felt was right. Oh! but it would be difficult!
The house, the laurelled drive, the little road, the distant moor and wood--these things had to-night a gentle air. Over the moor the setting sun flung a red flame; the woods burned black; the laurels were heavy with snow and a robin hopped down the drive as Olva passed.