"Laughing, was he?"
"But he stopped laughing when I gave him Trieve's message, and then he said what Lovell told you, sir."
"Never mind what Lovell told me. Give me your version of the story."
"Scaife asked the other fellows if Trieve had any right to fag him, now that he had got his 'fez.' If he had been drunk, sir, he wouldn't have thought of that, would he?"
"Um," said Rutford, slightly shaken. John described his return to Trieve's room, and Trieve's threat.
"Lovell and you tell the same story."
"Why, yes, sir." John made no deliberate attempt to look simple; but his face, to the master studying it, seemed quite guileless.
Just then, Dumbleton ushered in the doctor. To him Rutford recited what he knew and what he suspected. He had hardly finished speaking, when Scaife opened his eyes for the second time. By a curious coincidence, the doctor used the words of the house-master.
"Well, sir, how do you feel?"
And then Scaife answered, in the same dazed fashion as before—