“I don’t know,” said I, not very helpfully.

“I s’pose he’s heard all about it.  I hope he has—­at least, I mean, I’d like him to think I stuck by you.  Only, when the prefects were talking about defiance, it struck me that Radley might call it ‘insubordination.’”

There was a pause, and then he proceeded:  “I wonder if he’ll be sorry when he hears we are both laid up.”

“Who?”

“Why, Radley, of course.”

“Mr. Radley,” said a voice, “if you please.”

Radley, who had walked softly lest the invalids should be wakened from sleep, was standing in the room and looking at us in the glimmer.  We were very surprised, and Doe’s blushes at being caught were only exceeded by the pleasure-sparkling of his eyes.

Radley approached my bed and placed the clothes carefully over my chest.  I didn’t know whether to thank him for this, and only smiled and reddened.  And after he had done the same for Doe he sat at the foot of his bed.

“When the world turns against you, always go sick,” said he, smiling.  “It’s an excellent rule for changing ill-will to sympathy.  If you’re sent to Coventry, go straight to bed there.  Oh, you’re a subtle pair, aren’t you?”

We were both too shy to answer.

“Well, Ray, I’ve come to tell you to sleep with an easy mind.  The Head Master is satisfied that, if you were conducting operations in Mr. Fillet’s room, you were not conscious of it.  It was Dr. Chapman who worked all this for you.  He threatened to go on strike if any other conclusion were come to.  He asked the Head whether he’d ever dreamt he was doing most impossible things.  The Head said ‘Yes,’ and the doctor replied triumphantly:  ’Well, don’t let your brain get as excited as a child’s, or, maybe, if you’re feverish and run down, you’ll go and do them.’  He even suggested that possibly it was not you but the Head who had committed the crime.  He asked him if he could imagine ‘a silly and excitable kid’ (which is an excellent description of Ray) dreaming that he had done what actually was done....  The Head was incredulous at first, but the doctor talked so learnedly about the Subliminal Consciousness and Alternating Personalities that the Head, if only for fear of getting out of his depth, began to yield.  I drove home the advantage by saying that I believed you didn’t generally lie—­which was true, wasn’t it?”

“Good Lord, no!” I replied.

“Well, it will be some day.”  Radley rose and strolled to the door.  “Yes, there’s been a slump in Rupert Ray recently, but I’m afraid there’ll be a boom in him when he comes back to work, and he’ll get too big for his boots.  It’s a pity.  Good-night.”

And though Stanley, as we learnt later, had manfully revealed the full story of Doe’s sufferings at the hands of the prefects, Radley walked away without giving the young hero one word of admiration.  And as the door shut Doe turned round in his bed, so that his face was away from me, and maintained a wonderful silence.