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He felt, moreover, that that body had already, in the division of to-day from yesterday, lost much of its haunting power. In the clean freshness of the day, in the comfort of the casual voices of the two women in the other room, in the smell of the coffee, yesterday's melodrama seemed incredible. It had never happened; soon he would see from his window Carfax's hulking body cross the court.
He found this sudden gaze extraordinarily disconcerting; it was as though she were reasserting her claim to some common understanding that existed between them, to some secret that belonged to them alone. They avoided, for the most part, Carfax's death.
He himself seemed to think so, for he added in short jerks: "It was those old Druids got sick o' the sight o' Carfax's dirty body bangin' about in their preserves an' they gave him a chuck under the chin," and after that there was silence. To Olva the effect of this was uncanny. He played, it seemed, a spiritual Blind Man's Buff.
It had reached her too late. The appointment had been for the day before. She turned to the envelope, and saw that it must have been lying among her stepmother's correspondence for two days. Doubtless he had waited for her at the trysting-place, and waited in vain. Only one thing remained to be done, and that was to telegraph to Froggy for Carfax's address.
It was generally felt that Carfax's life had not been of the most savoury and that there were, in all probability, amongst the back streets of Cambridge several persons who had owed him a grudge. He appeared, indeed, in the discoveries that were now made on every side, to be something better dead than alive.
Both seemed to feel that the present was all-sufficing. Only once did Priscilla challenge Carfax's memory. The impulse was irresistible at the moment, though she regretted it later. He was holding out to her the biggest strawberry he could find.
Would you go along that way in the dark, Miss Annett?" "Not much I grant you, Mrs. Ridge." "Oh yes! not likely on a dark night, I don't think! and that pore Mr. Carfax well, all I say is, I 'opes they catch 'im, that's all I say . . ." with further reminiscence concerning Mrs. Birch who had worked on Carfax's staircase the last ten years and never "'ad no kind of luck. There was that Mr. Oliver "
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