him, but we
were on perfectly good terms. I think he was always a little afraid
of me, but it's curious to remember that we never had a quarrel of any
kind, until the day when I killed him."

Olva paused and asked Bunning to have a drink. Bunning, gazing at him
with desperate eyes, shook his head.

"Then we went on to Rugby together. It's odd how Fate has apparently
been determined to hammer out our paths side by side. Carfax grew more
and more beastly. He always did the filthiest things and yet out of
it all seemed to the world at large a perfectly decent fellow. He was
clever in that way. I am not trying to defend myself. I'm making it
perfectly straightforward and just as it really was. He knew that I knew
him better than anybody, and as we went on at Rugby I think that his
fear of me grew. I didn't hate him so much for being Carfax, but rather
as standing for all sorts of rotten things. It didn't matter to me in
the least whether he was a beast or not, I'm a beast myself, but it did
matter that he should smile about it and have damp hands. When I touched
his hand I always wanted to hit him.

"I've got a very sudden temper, all my family are like that--calm
most of the time and then absolutely wild. I hated him more up here
at College than I'd hated him at school. He developed and still his
reputation was just the same, decent fellows like Craven followed him,
excused him; he had that cheery manner. . . . Hating him became a habit
with me. I hated everything that he did--his rolling walk down the
Court, his red colour, his football . . . and then he ruined that fellow
Thompson. That was a poor game, but no one seemed to think anything of
it . . . and indeed he and I seemed to be very good friends. He used to
sneer at me behind my back, I know, but I didn't mind that. Any one's
at liberty to sneer if they like. But he was really afraid of me . . .
always.

"Then at last there was this girl that he set about destroying. He
seduced her, promised her marriage. I knew all about it, because she
used to be rather a friend of mine. I warned her, but she was absolutely
infatuated--wouldn't hear of anything that I had to say, thought it all
jealousy. She wasn't the kind of girl who could stand disgrace. . . .
She came to him one day and told him that she was going to have a baby.
He laughed at her in the regular old conventional way . . . and that
very afternoon, after he had seen her, he met me--there in Sannet Wood.

"