with the Head Master. I returned early, and I saw you jump from
the passage window. You don't deny that you went up to London, I
suppose?"

"No, sir; I don't deny it."

At the moment John, quite unconsciously, looked as if he were glorying
in what he had done. Warde could have struck his clean, clear face,
unblushingly meeting his furious glance. In disgust, he turned his
back and walked to the window. John felt rather than saw that his
tutor was profoundly moved. When he turned, two tears were trickling
down his cheeks. The sight of them nearly undid John. When Warde
spoke again, his voice was choked by his emotion.

"Verney," he said, "I spoke just now in an unrestrained manner, because
you--you"--his voice trembled--"have shaken my faith in all I hold most
dear. I say to you--I say to you that I believed in you as I believe
in my wife. Even now I feel that somehow there is a mistake--that you
are not what you confess yourself to be--a brazen-faced humbug. You
have worked as I have worked for this House, and in one moment you undo
that work. Have you paused to think, what effect this will have upon
the others?"

"Not yet, sir."

John looked respectfully sympathetic. Poor Warde! This was rough
indeed upon him.

Suddenly the door was flung open, and Desmond burst into the room, with
a complete disregard of the customary proprieties, and rushed up to
Warde.

"Sir," he said vehemently, "Verney did this to save--_me_!"

Warde saw the slow smile break upon John's face. And, seeing it, he
came as near hysterical laughter as a man of his character and
temperament can come. He perceived that John, for some amazing reason,
had played the scape-goat; that, in fact, he was innocent--not a
humbug, not a hypocrite, not a brazen-faced sinner. And the relief was
so stupendous that the tutor flung himself back into a chair, gasping.
Desmond spoke quietly.

"I was going to town, sir. For the first time, I swear. And only to
win a bet, and for the excitement of jumping out of a window. John
tried to dissuade me. When he exhausted every argument, he went
himself."

"The Lord be praised!" said Warde. He had divined everything; but he
let Desmond tell the story in detail. Scaife's name was left out of
the narrative.

Then Warde said slowly, "I shall not refer this business to the Head
Master; I shall deal with it myself. For your own sake, Desmond, for
the sake of your father, and, above all else, f