“No—please, a moment—may I not explain myself? although it needs surely no explanations. I mean the admirable relationship that has always, I believe, existed between us. I must confess that if I had yesterday been questioned as to which of my staff I could most securely trust and honor I should have named yourself.” He paused and then slowly added, “I need scarcely remind you that it is only a fortnight since there passed between us, in this very room, an interview of the most friendly and confidential description.” There was no word from the chair. “You must remember that, during the many years that have passed since you have been with me here you have made no kind of complaint. You have had many, very many opportunities, for voicing things freely to me. I have always been frank with you—you 've seized none of them. All the more amazing, the more compelling my surprise then, at what occurred to-day.” At last there was a pause that demanded a reply. The room was filled with silence and neither man moved. Perrin was striving to clear his brain. What was he to say? What had he come to say? Where were all the things that he had thought out so carefully in his study? Moreover, it was true; it was all amazingly true. They had been friends, he and Moy-Thompson, all these years, great friends. Other members of the staff may have rebelled and quarreled and disputed, but he had always supported authority. He remembered now with a kind of dazed surprise the pleasure that he had taken in those little quarter-of-an-hour interviews in that very room. This momentous and horrible fact rose now before him and froze any reply that he might make. He had been Moy-Thompson's devoted henchman for twenty years—was he the right man to head a rebellion now? In spite of the long silence he made no reply. “Well,” said Mr. Moy-Thompson, rubbing one hand against another, “I see that you admit, Mr. Perrin, that there is justice in some of my remarks. These things are facts—that you have been twenty years without a complaint, and that until this afternoon you and I (here more rubbing of the hands) were working shoulder to shoulder at a hard task that demanded our friendly cooperation. Then suddenly there is this outbreak; an outbreak unprecedented in the annals of our school; an outbreak for which there is no obvious reason; an outbreak that is in its nature, I should imagine, extremely foreign to your own character and habits—” Mr. Moy-Thompson paused an instant and then suddenly, “Well, what is the only explanation? What can be the only explanation?” Still no word from Mr. Perrin. “Well,” continued Mr. Moy-Thompson genially, “overwork, of course. Overwork. We have perhaps all noticed that, during these last weeks, things were being a little too much for you—hum—yes—natural enough, natural enough. We 're all tired at times and it's a long time since you were out of harness—yes, indeed.” “I 'm not tired.”