The Prelude to Adventure

Olva Dune was twenty-three years of age. He was of Spanish descent, and it was only within the last two generations that English blood had mingled with the Dune stock. He was of no great height, slim and dark. His hair was black, his complexion sallow, and on his upper lip he wore a small dark moustache. His ears were small, his mouth thin, his chin sharply pointed, but his eyes, large, dark brown, were his best feature. They were eyes that looked as though they held in their depths the possibility of tenderness.

He walked as an athlete, there was no spare flesh about him anywhere, and in his carriage there was a dignity that had in it pride of birth, complete self-possession, and above all, contempt for his fellow-creatures.

He despised all the world save only his father. He had gone through his school-life and was now passing through his college-life as a man travels through a country that has for him no interest and no worth but that may lead, once it has been traversed, to something of importance and adventure. He was now at the beginning of his second year at Cambridge and was regarded by every one with distrust, admiration, excitement. His was one of the more interesting personalities at that time in residence at Saul's.

He had come with a historical scholarship and a great reputation as a Three-quarter from Rugby. He was considered to be a certain First Class and a certain Rugby Blue; he, lazily and indifferently during the course of his first term, discouraged both these anticipations. He attended no lectures, received a Third Class in his May examinations, and was deprived of his scholarship at the end of his first year. He played brilliantly in the Freshmen's Rugby match, but so indolently in the first University match of the season that he was not invited again. Had he played merely badly he would have been given a second trial, but his superior insolence was considered insulting. He never played in any College matches nor did he trouble to watch any of their glorious conflicts. Once and again he produced an Essay for his Tutor that astonished that gentleman very considerably, but when called before the Dean for neglecting to attend lectures explained that he was studying the Later Roman Empire and could not possibly attend to more than one thing at a time.

He was perfectly friendly to every one, and it was curious that, with his air of contempt for the world in general, he had made no enemies. He wondered at that himself, on occasions; he had always been supposed, for instance, to be very good friends with Carfax. He had, of course, always hated Carfax-and now Carfax was dead.

The little crooked path soon left the dark wood and merged into the long white Cambridge road. The flat country was veiled in mist, only, like a lantern above a stone wall, the sun was red over the lower veils of white that rose from the sodden fields. Some trees started like spies along the road. Overhead, where the mists were faint, the sky showed the faintest of pale blue. The long road rang under Olva's step-it would be a frosty night.

When the little wood was now a black ball in the mist Olva was suddenly sick. He leant against one of the dark mysterious trees and was wretchedly, horribly ill. Slowly, then, the colour came back to his cheeks, his hands were once more steady, he could see again clearly. He addressed the strange world about him, the long flat fields, the hard white road, the orange sun. "That is the last time," he said aloud, "the last weakness."

He definitely braced himself to face life. There would not be much of it-to-morrow he would be arrested: meanwhile there should be no more of these illusions. There was, for instance, the illusion that the body was following him, bounding grotesquely along the hard road. He knew that again and again he turned his head to see whether anything were there, and the further the little wood was left behind the nearer did the body seem to be. He must not allow himself to think these things. Carfax was dead-Carfax was dead-Carfax was dead. It was a good thing that Carfax was dead. He had saved, he hoped, Rose Midgett-that at any rate he had done; it was a good thing for Rose Midgett that he had killed Carfax. He had, incidentally, no interest on his own account in Rose Midgett-he scarcely knew her by sight-but it was pleasant to think that she would be no longer worried. . . .

Then there was that question about God. Now the river appeared, darkly, dimly below the road, the reeds rising spire-like towards the faint blue sky. That question about God-Olva had never believed in any kind of a God. His father had defied God and the Devil time and again and had been none the worse for it. And yet-here and there about the world people lived and had their being to whom this question of God was a vital question; people like Bunning and his crowd-mad, the whole lot of them. Nevertheless there was something there that had great power. That had, until to-day, been Olva's attitude, an amused superior curiosity.

Now it was a larger question. There had been that moment after Carfax had fallen, a moment of intense silence, and in that moment something had spoken to Olva. It is a fact as sure as concrete, as though he himself could remember words and gesture. There had been Something there. . . .

Brushing this for an instant aside, he faced next the question of his arrest. There was no one, save his father, for whom he need think. He would send his father word saying-"I have killed a beast-fairly-in the open"-that would be all.

He would not be hanged-poison should see to that. Dunes had murdered, raped, tortured-never yet had they died on the gallows.

And now, for the first time, the suspicion crossed his mind that perhaps, after all, he might escape-escape, at any rate, that order of punishment. Here on this desolate road, he had met no living soul; the mists encompassed him and they had now swallowed the dripping wood and all that it contained. It had always been supposed that he was good friends with Carfax, as good friends as he allowed himself to be with any one. No one had known in which direction he would take his walk; he had come upon Carfax entirely by chance. It might quite naturally be supposed that some tramp had attempted robbery. To the world at large Olva could have had no possible motive. But, for the moment, these thoughts were dismissed. It seemed to him just now immaterial whether he lived or died. Life had not hitherto been so wonderful a discovery that the making of it had been entirely worth while. He had no tenor of disgrace; his father was his only court of appeal, and that old rocky sinner, sitting alone with his proud spirit and his grey hairs, in his northern fastness, hating and despising the world, would himself slay, had he the opportunity, as many men of the Carfax kind as he could find. He had no terror of pain-he did not know what that kind of fear was. The Dunes had always faced Death.

But he began, dimly, now to perceive that there were larger, crueller issues before him than these material punishments. He had known since he was a tiny child a picture by some Spanish painter, whose name he had forgotten, that had always hung on the wall of the passage opposite his bedroom. It was a large engraving in sharply contrasted black and white, of a knight who rode through mists along a climbing road up into the heart of towering hills. The mountains bad an active life in the picture; they seemed to crowd forward eager to swallow him. Beside the spectre horse that he rode there was no other life. The knight's face, white beneath his black helmet, was tired and worn. About him was the terror of loneliness.

From his earliest years this idea of loneliness had pleasantly seized upon Olva's mind. His father had always impressed upon him that the Dunes had ever been lonely-lonely in a world that was contemptible. He had always until now accepted this idea and found it confirmed on every side. His six years at Rugby had encouraged him-he had despised, with his tolerant smile, boys and masters alike; all insincere, all weak, all to be used, if he wanted them, as he chose to use them. He had thought often of the lonely knight-that indeed should be his attitude to the world.

But now, suddenly, as the scattered Cambridge houses with their dull yellow lights began to creep stealthily through the mist, upon the road, he knew for the first time that loneliness could be terrible. He was hurrying now, although he had not formerly been conscious of it, hurrying into the lights and comforts and noise of the town. There might only be for him now a night and day of freedom, but, during that time, he must not, he must not be alone. The patter of Bunker's feet beside him pleased him. Bunker was now a fact of great importance to him.

And now he could see further. He could see that he must always now, from the consciousness of the thing that he had done, he alone. The actual moment of striking his blow had put an impassable gulf between his soul and all the world. Bodies might touch, hands might be grasped, voices ring together, always now his soul must be alone. Only, that Something-of whose Presence he had been, in that instant, aware-could keep his company. They two . . . they two. . . .

The suburbs of Cambridge had closed about him. Those dreary little streets, empty as it seemed of all life, facing him sullenly with their sodden little yellow lamps, shivering, grumbling, he could fancy, in the chill of that November evening, eyed him with suspicion. He walked through them now, with his shoulders back, his head up. He could fancy how, to-morrow, their dull placidity would be wrung by the discovery of the crime. The little wood would fling its secret into the eager lap of these decrepit witches; they would crowd to their doors, chatter it, shout it, pull it to pieces. "Body of an Undergraduate . . . Body of an Undergraduate. . . ."

He turned out of their cold silence over the bridge that spanned the river, up the path that crossed the common into the heart of the town, Here, at once, he was in the hubbub. The little streets were mediaeval in their narrow space, in their cobbles, in the old black, fantastic walls that hung above them. Beauty, too, on this November evening, shone through the misty lamplight. Beauty in the dark purple of the evening sky, beauty in the sudden vista of grey courts with lighted windows, like eyes, seen through stone gateways. Beauty in the sudden golden shadows of some corner shop glittering through the mist; beauty in the overshadowing of the many towers that were like grey clouds in mid-air.

The little streets chattered with people-undergraduates in Norfolk jackets, grey flannel trousers short enough to show the brightest of socks, walked arm in arm-voices rang out-men called across the streets-hansoms rattled like little whirlwinds along the cobbles--many bells were ringing-dark bodies, leaning from windows, gave uncouth cries . . . over it all the mellow lamplight.

Into this happy confusion Olva Dune plunged. He shook off from him, as a dog shakes water from his back, the memory of that white mist-haunted road. Once he deliberately faced the moment when he had been sick-faced it, heard once again the dull, lumbering sound that the body had made as it bundled along the road, and then put it from him altogether. Now for battle . . . his dark eyes challenged this shifting cloud of life.

He went round to the stable where Bunker was housed, chattered with the blue-chinned ostler, and then, for a moment, was alone with the dog. How much had Bunker seen? How much had he understood? Was it fancy, or did the dog crouch, the tiniest impulse, away from him as he bent to pat him? Bunker was tired; he relapsed on to his haunches, wagged his tail, grinned, but in his eyes there seemed, although the lamplight was deceptive, to be the faintest shadow of an apprehension.

"Good old dog, good old Bunker." Bunker wagged his tail, but the tiniest shiver passed, like a thought, through his body.

Olva left him.

As he passed through the streets he met men whom he knew. They nodded or flung a greeting. How strange to think that to-morrow night they would be speaking of him in low, grave voices as one who was already dead. "I knew the fellow quite well, strange, reserved man-nobody really knew him. With these foreigners, you know . . ."

Oh! he could hear them!

He passed through the gates of Saul's. The porter touched his hat. The great Centre Court was shrouded in mist, and out of the white veil the grey buildings rose, gently, on every side. There were lights now in the windows; the Chapel bell was ringing, hushed and dimmed by the heavy air. Boots rang sharply along the stone corridors. Olva crossed the court towards his room.

Suddenly, from the very heart of the mist, sharply, above the sound of the Chapel bell, a voice called-

"Carfax! Carfax!"

Olva stayed: for an instant the blood ran from his body, his knees quivered, his face was as white as the mist. Then he braced himself-he knew the voice.

"Hullo, Craven, is that you?"

"Who's that? . . . Can't see in this mist."

"Dune."

"Hullo, Dune. I say, do you know what's happened to Carfax?"

"Happened? No-why?"

"Well, I can't find him anywhere. I wanted to get him for Bridge. He ought to be back by now."

"Back? Where's he been?"

"Going over to see some aunt or other at Grantchester-ought to be back by now."

An aunt?-No, Rose Midgett.

"No-I've no idea-haven't seen him since yesterday."

"Been out for a walk?"

"Yes, just took my dog for a bit."

"See you in Hall?"

"Right-o!"

The voice began again calling under the windows-"Carfax! Carfax!"

Olva climbed the stairs to his rooms.

He went into Hall. He sat amongst the particular group of his own year who were considered the elite. There was Cardillac there, brilliant, flashing Cardillac. There was Bobby Galleon, fat, good-natured, sleepy, intelligent in an odd bovine way. There was Craven, young, ardent, hail-fellow-well-met. There was Lawrence, burly back for the University in Rugby, unintelligent, kind and good-tempered unless he were drunk.

There were others. They all sat in their glory, noisily happy. Somewhere in the distance on a raised dais were the Dons gravely pompous. Every now and again word was brought that the gentlemen were making too much noise. The Master might be observed drinking elaborately, ceremoniously with some guest. Madden, the Service Tutor, flung his shrill treble voice above the general hubbub-

"But, my dear Ross, if you had only observed--"

"Where is Carfax?" came suddenly from Lawrence. He asked Craven, who was, of course, the devoted friend of Carfax. Craven had large brown eyes, a charming smile, a prominent chin, rather fat routed cheeks and short brown hair that curled a little. He gave the impression of eager good-temper and friendliness. To-night he looked worried. "I don't know," he said, "I can't understand it. He said this morning that he'd be here to-night and make up a four at Bridge. He went off to see an aunt or some one at Grantchester!"

"Perhaps," said Bobby Galleon gravely, "he had an exeat and has gone up to town."

"But he'd have said something-sure. And the porter hasn't seen him. He would have been certain to know."

Olva was never expected to talk much. His reserve was indeed rather popular. The entirely normal and ordinary men around him appreciated this mystery. "Rum fellow, Dune . . . nobody knows him." His high dark colour, his dignity, his courtesy had about it something distinguished and romantic. "He'll do something wonderful one day, you bet. Why, if he only chose to play up at footer there's nothing he couldn't do."

Even the brilliant Cardillac, thin, dark, handsome leader of fashion and society, admitted the charm.

Now, however, Olva, looking up, quietly said-

"I expect his aunt's kept him to dinner. He'll turn up."

But of course he wouldn't turn up. He was lying in the heart of that crushed, dripping fern with his leg doubled under him. It wasn't often that one killed a man with one blow; the signet ring that he wore on the little finger of his right hand-a Dune ring of great antiquity-must have had something to do with it.

He turned it round thoughtfully on his finger. Robert, an old, old trembling waiter, said in a shaking voice-

"There's salmi of wild game, sir-roast beef."

"Beef, please," Olva said quietly.

He was considering now that all these men would to-morrow night have only one thought, one idea. They would remember everything, the very slightest thing that 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 was a desperate silence and then he plunged out with-"Well, you know, I-that is-we-I-sort of wondered whether, you know, you'd care-not if you're awfully busy of course-but whether you'd care to come and hear Med. Tetloe preach to-night. I know it's most awful cheek--" He was nearly in tears.

Olva kept an amazed silence. Life! What an amusing thing!-that he, with his foot on the edge of disaster, death, should be invited by Bunning to a revival meeting. He understood it, of course. Bunning had been sent, as an ardent missionary is sent into the heart of West Africa, to invite Olva to consider his soul. He was expecting, poor creature, to be kicked violently down the twisting wooden stairs. On another occasion he would be sent to Lawrence or Cardillac, and then his expectations would be most certainly fulfilled. But it was for the cause-at least these sinners should be given the opportunity of considering their souls. If they refused to consider them, they must not complain if they find the next world but little to their fancy.

No one had ever attacked Olva before on this subject. His reserve had been more alarming to the Soul Hunters than the coarse violence of a Cardillac or a Carfax. And now Bunning-Bunning of all people in this ridiculous world-had ventured. Well, there was pluck necessary for that. Bunning, the coward, had done a braver thing than many more stalwart men would have cared to do. There was bravery there!

Moreover, why should not Olva go? He could not sit alone in his room, his nerves would soon be too many for him. What did it matter? His last evening of freedom should be spent as no other evening of his life had been spent. . . . Moreover, might there not be something behind this business? Might he not, perhaps, be shown to-night some clue to the presence of that Power that had spoken to him in the wood? Through all the tangled confusion of his thoughts, through the fear and courage there ran this note-where was God? . . . God the only person to Whom he now could speak, because God knew.

Might not this idiot of a Bunning have been shown the way to the mystery?

"Yes," said Olva, smiling. "I'll come, if you won't mind sitting down and smoking for a quarter of an hour, while I finish this-have a drink, will you?"

Bunning's consternation at Olva's acceptance was amusing. He dropped his cap, stopped to pick it up, gasped. That Dune should really come!

"You'll come?" he spluttered out. Never in his wildest imaginings had he fancied such a thing. Dune, the most secret, reserved, mysterious man in the college-Dune, whose sarcastic smile was considered more terrifying than Lawrence's mailed fist-Dune, towards whom in the back of his mind there had been paid that reverence that belongs only to those who are of another world.

Never, in anything that had happened to him, had Bunning been so terrified as he had been by this visit to Dune. Watson Morley, the Christian Union man, had insisted that it was his duty and therefore he had come, but it had taken him ten minutes of agony to climb those stairs. And now Dune had accepted. . . .

The colour flooded his cheeks and faded again. He sat down clumsily in a chair, felt for a pipe that he smoked unwillingly because it was the manly thing to do, spurted some Apollinaris into a glass and over the tablecloth, struck many matches vainly, dropped tobacco on to the carpet. His heart was beating like a hammer!

How men would stare when they saw him with Dune. In his heart was the uneasy knowledge that had Dune proposed staying there in his rooms and talking instead of going to Little St. Agnes and listening to the Reverend Med. Tetloe, he would have stayed. This was not right, it was not Christian. The world gaped below Bunning's heavy feet.

At last Dune said: "I'm ready, let's go." They went out.

And after all he slept, slept dreamlessly. He woke to the comfortable accustomed voices of Mrs. Ridge, his bedmaker, and Miss Annett, her assistant. It was a cold frosty morning; the sky showed through the window a cloudless blue.

He could hear the deep base voice of Mrs. Ridge in her favourite phrase:

"Well, I don't think, Miss Annett. You won't get over me," and Miss

Annett's mildly submissive, "I should think not indeed, Mrs. Ridge."

Lying back in bed he surveyed with a mild wonder the fact that he had thus, easily, slept. 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. No, it was real enough, only it did not concern him. He watched it, as a spectator, indifferent, callous. There was a change in his life, but it was a change of another kind. In the strange consciousness that he now had of some vast and vital Presence, the temporal fact of the thing that he had done lost all importance. There was something that he had got to find, to discover. If-and the possibility seemed large now in the air of this brilliant morning-he were, after all, to escape, he would not rest until he had made his discovery. Some new life was stirring within him. He wanted now to fling himself amongst men; he would play football, he would take his place in the college, he would test everything-leave no stone unturned. No longer a cynical observer, he would be an adventurer . . . if they would let him alone.

He got out of bed, stripped, and stood over his bath. The cold air beat upon his skin; he rejoiced in the sense of his fitness, in the movement of his muscles, in the splendid condition of his body. If this were to be the last day of his freedom, it should at any rate be a splendid day.

He had his bath, flung on a shirt and trousers and went into his sitting-room, bright now with the morning sun, so that the blue bowls and the red tiles shone, and even the dark face of Aegidius was lighted with the gleam.

Mrs. Ridge was short and stout, with white hair, a black bonnet, and the deepest of voices. Her eagerness to deliver herself of all the things that she wanted to say prevented full-stops and commas from being of any use to her. Miss Annett was admirably suited as a companion, being long, thin and silent, and intended by nature to be subservient to the more masterful of her sex. With any man she was able easily to hold her own; with Mrs. Ridge she was bending, bowed, humility.

Mrs. Ridge grinned like a dog at the appearance of Olva. "Good mornin', sir, and a nice frosty cold sort o' day it is with Miss Annett just breakin' one of your cups, sir, 'er 'ands bein' that cold and a cup bein' an easy thing to slip out of the 'and as you must admit yourself, sir. Pore Miss Annett is that distressed."

Miss Annett did indeed look downcast. "I can't think--" she began.

"It's quite all right, Miss Annett," said Olva. "I think it's wonderful that you break the things as seldom as you do. The china was of no kind of value."

It was known in the college that Mr. Dune was the only gentleman of whom Mrs. Ridge could be said to be afraid; she was proud of him and frightened of him. She said to Miss Annett, when that lady made her first appearance-

"And I can tell you, Miss Annett, that you need never 'ave no fear of bein' introjuced to Royalty one of these days after bein' with that Mr. Dune, because it puts you in practice, I can tell you, and a nice spoken gentleman 'e is and quiet-never does a thing 'e shouldn't, but wicked under it all I'll be bound. 'E's no chicken, you take it from me. Born yesterday? I don't think. . . ."

The women faded away, and he was left to himself. After breakfast he thought that he would write to his father and give him an account of the thing that he had done; if he escaped suspicion he would tear it up. Also he was determined on two things: one was that if he were accused of the crime, he would at once admit everything; the other was that he would do his utmost, until he was accused, to lead his life exactly as though he were in no way concerned. He had now an odd assurance that it was not by his public condemnation that he was intended to work out the results of his act. Why was he so assured of that? What was it that was now so strangely moving him? He faced the world, armed, resolved. It seemed to him that it was important for him, now, to live. This was the first moment of his life that existence had appeared to be of any moment. He wanted time to continue his search.

He wrote to his father--

MY DEAR FATHER,--

I have just been arrested on the charge of murdering an undergraduate here called Carfax. It is quite true that I killed him. We met yesterday, in the country, quarrelled, and I struck him, hitting him on the chin. He fell instantly, breaking his neck. He was muck of the worst kind. I had known him at Rugby; he was always a beast of the lowest order. He was ruining a fellow here, taking his money, making him drink, doing for him; also ruining a girl in a tobacconist's shop. All this was no business of mine, but we had always loathed one another. I think when I hit him I wanted to kill him. I am not, in any way, sorry, except that suddenly I do not want to die. You are the only person in the world for whom I care; you will understand. I have not disgraced the name; it was killing a rat. I think that you had better not come to see me. I face it better alone. We have gone along well together, you and I. I send you my love. Good-bye, OLVA.

As he finished it, he wondered, Would this be sent? Would they come for him? Perhaps, at this moment, they had found the body. He put the letter carefully in the pocket of his shirt. Then, suddenly, he was confronted with the risk. Suppose that he were to be taken ill, to faint, to forget the thing. . . . No, the letter must wait. They would allow him to write, if the time came.

He took the letter, flung it into the fire, watched it burn. He felt as though, in the writing of it, he had communicated with his father. The old man would understand.