he had done. They would discuss it all from every possible point of view.
"I always knew he'd do something. … " He suddenly knew quite sharply, as though a voice had spoken to him, that he could not endure this any longer. There was gathering upon him the conviction that in a few minutes, rising from his place, he would cry out to the hall—"I, Olva Dune, this afternoon, killed Carfax. You will find his body in the wood." He repeated the words to himself under his breath. "You will find his body in the wood. … " "You will find … "
He finished his beef very quietly and then got up.
Craven appealed to him. "I say, Dune, do come and make a four—my rooms, half-past eight—Lawrence and Galleon are the other two."
Olva looked down at him with his grave, rather melancholy smile.
"Afraid I can't to-night, Craven; must work."
"Don't overdo it," Cardillac said.
The eyes of the two men met. Olva knew that Cardillac—"Cards" as he was to his friends, liked him; he himself did not hate Cardillac. He was the only man in the College for whom he had respect. They were both of them demanding the same thing from the world. They both of them despised their fellow-creatures.
Olva, climbing the stairs to his room, stood for a moment in the dark, before he turned on the lights. He spoke aloud in a whisper, as though some one were with him in the room.
"This won't do," he said. "This simply won't do. Your nerves are going. You've only got a few hours of it. Hold on—Think of the beast that he was. Think of the beast that he was."
He walked slowly back to the door and turned on the electric lights. He did not sport his oak—if people came to see him he would rather like it: in some odd way it would be more satisfactory than that he should go to see them—but people did not often come to see him.
He laid out his books on the table and sat down. He had grown fond of this room. The walls were distempered white. The ceiling was old and black with age. There was a deep red-tiled fireplace. One wall had low brown bookshelves. There were two pictures: one an Around reprint of Matsys' "Portrait of Aegidius"—that wise, kind, tender face; the other an admirable photogravure of Durer's "Selbstbildnis." The books were mainly to do with his favourite historical period—the Later Roman Empire. There was some poetry—an edition of Browning, Swinburne's Poems and Ballads, Ernest Dowson, Rossetti, Francis Thompson. There was an edition of Hazlitt, a set of the Spectator, one or two novels, Henry Lessingham and The Roads by Galleon, To Paradise by Lester, Meredith's One of Our Conquerors and Diana of the Crossways, The Ambassadors and Awkward Age of Henry James.
On the mantelpiece above the fireplace there were three deep blue bowls, the only ornaments in the room. Beyond the little diamond-paned windows, beyond the dark mysteries of the Fellows' garden, a golden mist rose from the lamps of the street, there were stars in the sky.
He faced his books. For a quarter of an hour he saw before him the hanging, baggy cheeks, the white, staring eyes, the glittering ring on the weak finger. His hands began to tremble. …
There was a timid knock on the door, and he was instantly sure that the body had been found, and that they had come to arrest him. He stood back from the door with his hand pressing on the table. It was almost a relief to him that the summons had come so soon—it would presently all be over.
"Come in," he said, and gave one look at the golden mist, at the stars, at the tender face of Aegidius.
The door was opened slowly with fumbling hands, and there stood there a large, fat, clumsy, shapeless creature, with a white face, a hooked nose, an open, foolish mouth.
The reaction was hysterical. To expect a summons to death and public shame, to find—Bunning. Bunning—that soft, blithering, emotional, religious, middle-class maniac—Bunning! "Soft-faced" Bunning, as he was called, was the man of Olva's year in whom the world at large found most entertainment. The son of some country clergyman, kicked and battered through the slow, dreary years at some small Public School, he had come up to Saul's with an intense, burning desire to make a mark. He was stupid, useless at games, having only somewhere behind his fat ugly body a longing to be connected with some cause, some movement, some person of whom he might make a hero.
He had, of course, within the first fortnight of his arrival, plunged himself into dire disgrace. He had asked Lawrence, coming like a young god from Marlborough, in to coffee; they had made him drunk and laughed at his hysterical tears: in his desire for popularity he had held a gathering in his room, with the original intention of coffee, cakes and gentle conversation; the evening had ended with the arrival of all his furniture and personal effects upon the grass of the court below his windows.
He had been despised by the Dons, buffeted and derided by his fellow undergraduates. Especially had Carfax and Cardillac made his life a burden to him, and whenever it seemed that there was nothing especial to do, the cry arose, "Let's go and rag Bunning," and five minutes later that fat body would tremble at the sound of many men climbing the wooden stairs, at the loud banging on his wooden door, at the cry, "Hullo, Bunning—we've come for some coffee."
Then, towards the end of the first year, the Cambridge Christian Union flung out its net and caught him. His attempt at personal popularity had failed here as thoroughly as it had failed at school—now for his soul. He found that the gentlemen of his college who were members of the Christian Union were eager for his company. They did not laugh at his conversation nor mock his proffered hospitalities. They talked to him, persuaded him that his soul was in jeopardy, and carried him off during part of the Long Vacation to the Norfolk Broads, where prayer-meetings, collisions with other sea-faring craft, and tinned meats were the order of the day.
Olva had watched him with that amused incredulity that he so frequently bestowed upon his fellow-creatures. How was this kind of animal, with its cowardice, its stupidity, its ugliness, its uselessness, possible? He had never spoken to Bunning, although he had once received a note from him asking him to coffee—a piece of very considerable impertinence. He had never assisted Carfax and Cards in their raiding expeditions, but that was only because he considered such things tiresome and childish.
And now, behold, there in his doorway—incredible vision!—was the creature—at this moment of—all others!
"Come in," said Olva again.
Bunning brought his large quivering body into the room and stood there, turning his cap round and round in his hands.
"Oh, I say—" and there he stopped.
"Won't you sit down?"
"No—thanks—I——"
"In what way can I be of use to you?"
"Oh! I say—"
Senseless giggles, and then Bunning's mouth opened and remained open. His eyes stared at Dune.
"Well, what is it?"
"Oh—my word—you know—"
"Look here," said Olva quietly, "if you don't get on and tell me what you want I shall do you some bodily damage. I've got work to do. Another time, perhaps, when I am less busy——"
Bunning was nearly in tears. "Oh, yes, I know—it's most awful cheek—I——"
There
