‘I had a headache, sir,’ was the answer. ‘Did you go and see Mrs. Podmore’ (the matron) ‘as I was not in?’ said Mr. Brandiston. ‘No, sir,’ replied Gerald. ‘Why not?’ asked Mr. Brandiston. No reply. It was not known to Mr. Brandiston that Gerald Eversley and Mrs. Podmore had been for some time sworn enemies. Mrs. Podmore was ‘a woman with a temper.’ Most good servants, it is said, have bad tempers. Mr. Brandiston proceeded. ‘Did you, in fact, “stay out” next morning?’ ‘No, sir,’ answered Gerald. ‘But how was that,’ said Mr. Brandiston, ‘if you were ill?’ ‘Please, sir, I felt better in the morning,’ was the answer. ‘Did you tell any one on Wednesday night that you felt ill?’ asked Mr. Brandiston. ‘No, sir,’ answered Gerald; but as he answered, his face became suffused with a deep blush. There was a rather awkward pause. Then Mr. Brandiston put a final question by way of disguising his real object. ‘I suppose you went straight back from the study, when you saw I was not here, to your own room?’ ‘Yes, sir,’ said Gerald, still blushing. ‘That is all I want, Eversley. You may go now. Good night.’ Gerald closed the door and went quietly away. Mr. Brandiston remained plunged in profound meditation. It was a strange story, he thought, that this boy had told him. There was nothing, indeed, to show that it was not true, but it was strange. Boys who seek permission to absent themselves from school, as being ill, are not generally anxious to conceal their illness; they are more apt to exaggerate than to conceal it. Why, then, had Gerald Eversley not informed anybody that he was ill? What was the meaning of this sudden attack, this sudden recovery? It was strange, very strange. Mr. Brandiston was a man of experience; he flattered himself that he knew boys; he was confident that something was wrong. Then the blush, the hesitation in Gerald’s manner--they were suspicious. An honest boy had no reason to blush; why should he not look his master in the face and give him a straightforward answer? Mr. Brandiston was a man of experience; he flattered himself that he knew boys; he confessed he did not like that blush. Mr. Brandiston knew boys; but did he know this boy? That was the question. Rules of behaviour, like rules of law, have their exceptions. Had he been familiar with Mr. Darwin’s scientific observations on the expression of human emotions, he would have understood that people do not always blush on the same occasions or for the same reasons. It is an error to assume that a blush is invariably a sign of guilt; it may be a sign of conscious rectitude or wounded honour. There are those who are pained as much by the suspicion of guilt as by detection in guilt. There are natures that feel a doubt as a stab, and resent insinuation as a stain. Was it so here?