He began to boast about it, told me jokingly about the way that he'd
'shut her mouth,' as he called it . . . laughed . . . I hit him. I meant
to hit him hard, I hated him so; I think that I wanted to kill him.
All the accumulated years were in that blow, I suppose; at any rate, I
caught him on the chin and it broke his neck and he dropped . . . that's
all."

Olva paused, finished his drink, and ended with--

"There it is--it's simple enough. I'm not in the least sorry I killed
him. I've no regrets; he was better out of the world than in it, and
I've probably saved a number of people from a great deal of misery. I
thought at first that I should be caught, but they aren't very sharp
round here and there was really nothing to connect me with it. But there
were other things--there's more in killing a man than the mere killing.
I haven't been able to stand the loneliness---so I told you."

The last words brought him back to Bunning, a person whom he had almost
forgotten. A sudden pity for the man's distress made his voice tender.
"I say, Running, I oughtn't to have told you. It's been too much for
you. But if you knew the relief that it is to me. . . . Though, mind
you, if it's on your conscience, if it burdens you, you must 'out' with
it. Don't have any scruples about me. But it needn't burden you. _You_
hadn't any-thing to do with it. You were here and I told you. That's
all. I've shown you that I want you as a friend."

For answer the creature burst suddenly into tears, hiding his face
in his sleeve, as small boys hide their faces, and choking out
desperately--

"Oh! my God! Oh! my God!"

CHAPTER X

CRAVEN

1

That evening Olva was elected President of the Wolves. It was a ceremony
conducted with closed doors and much drinking of wine, by a committee
of four and the last reigning President who had the casting vote. The
College waited in suspense and at eleven o'clock it was understood that
Dune had been elected.

According to custom, on the day following in "Hall" Olva would be
cheered by the assembled undergraduates whilst the gods on the dais
smiled gently and murmured that "boys will be boys."

Meanwhile the question that agitated the Sauline world was the way that
Cardillac would take it. "If it had been any one else but Dune . . ."
but it couldn't have been any one else. There was no other possible
rival, and "Cards," like the rest of the world, bowed to Dune's charm.
The Dublin match, to be played