Because that confession--how clearly he knew it!--was the thing that God demanded.

So long as he kept silence he resisted the Pursuer--so long as he resisted the Pursuer he must fly, he must escape--first into Silence, then into Sound, then back again to Silence.
Somewhere, behind his actual consciousness: there was the knowledge that, did he once yield himself, life would be well, but that yielding meant Confession, Renunciation, Devotion.

It was not because it was Carfax that he had killed, but it was because it was God that had spoken to him, that he fled.
A fortnight ago he would have been already defeated--the Pursuer should have caught him, bound him, done with him as he would.

But now--in that same instant that young Craven had looked at him with challenge in his eyes, in that instant also he, Olva, had looked at Margaret.
In that silence, yesterday evening, in the dark drawing-room the two facts had together leapt at him--he loved Margaret Craven, he was suspected by Rupert Craven.

Love had thus, terribly, grimly, and yet so wonderfully, sprung into his heart that had never, until now, known its lightest touch.