Hugh Walpole

The Prelude To Adventure Hugh Walpole

"There is a God after all." That was the immense conviction that faced him as he heard, slowly, softly, the leaves, the twigs, settle themselves after that first horrid crash that the clumsy body had made. Olva Dune stood for an instant straight and stiff, his arms heavily at his side, and the dank, misty wood slipped back once more into silence. There was about him now the most absolute stillness: some trees dripped in the mist; far above him, on the top of the hill, the little path showed darkly-below him, in the hollow, black masses of fern and weed lay heavily under the chill November air-at his feet there was the body. In that sudden after silence he had known beyond any question that might ever again arise, that there was now a God-God had watched him. With grave eyes, with hands that did not tremble, he surveyed and then, bending, touched the body. He knelt in the damp, heavy soil, tore open the waistcoat, the shirt; the flesh was yet warm to his touch-the heart was still. Carfax was dead.