"Simply," said Olva, "because it seems to me that ten men on to one is a rotten poor game."
"I don't know," said Bunning, still very husky, "If a man's a fool he gets rotted. That's natural enough. I've always been rotted all my life. I used to think it was because people didn't understand me--now I know that it really is because I am an ass."
Strangely, suddenly, some of the burden that bad been upon Olva now for so long was lifted. The atmosphere of the room that had lain upon him so heavily was lighter--and he seemed to feel the gentle withdrawing of that pursuit that now, ever, night and day, sounded in his ears.
And what, above all, had happened to him? He flung his mind back to a month ago. With what scorn then would he have glanced at Bunning's ugly body--with what impatience have listened to his pitiful confessions. Now he said gently--
Bunning gulped and gripped the baggy knees of his trousers.
"I'm very unhappy," he said at last desperately--"very. And if you hadn't come with me the other night to hear Med-Tetloe--I'm sure I don't know why you did--I shouldn't have come now---"
Bunning's mouth was full of toast. "It was that night--that service. I was very worked up and I went round afterwards to speak to him. I could see, you know, that it hadn't touched you at all. I could see that, and then when I went round to see him he hadn't got anything to say--nothing that I wanted--and--suddenly--then--at that moment--I felt it was all no good. It was you, you made me feel like that---"
"Yes. If you hadn't gone--like that--it would have been different. But when you--the last man in College to care about it-went and gave it its chance I thought that would prove it. And then when I went to him he was so silly, Med-Tetloe I mean. Oh! I can't describe it but it was just no use and I began to feel that it was all no good. I don't believe there is a God at all--it's all been wrong--I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go. I've been wretched for days, not sleeping or anything. And then they come and rag me--and--and--the Union men want me to take Cards round for a Prayer Meeting--and--and--I wouldn't, and they said. . . . Oh! I don't know, I don't know _what_ to do--I haven't got any-thing left!"