Prayers followed, another hymn. Bunning with red eyes has contemplated his sins and is in a glow of excited repentance. It is over.
As Olva rose to leave the building he knew that this was not the path for which he was searching. Not here was that terrible Presence. . . . The men poured in a black crowd out into the night. As Olva stepped into the darkness he knew that the terror was only now beginning for him. Standing there now with no sorrow, remorse, repentance, nevertheless he knew that all night, alone in his room, he would be fighting with devils. . . .
Bunning, nervously, stammered—"If you don't mind—I think I'm going round for a minute."
Olva nodded good-night. As he went on his way to Saul's, grimly, it seemed humorous that "soft-faced" Bunning should be going to confess his thin, miserable little sins.
For him, Olva Dune, only a dreadful silence. . . .
CHAPTER III — THE BODY COMES TO TOWN
1
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.