‘And when he died, she came and cried all the morning,’ said Miss Fowler.  ’This only makes me feel tired—­terribly tired.  Will you help me to bed, please, Mary?—­And I think I’d like the hot-water bottle.’

So Mary helped her and sat beside, talking of Wynn in his riotous youth.

‘I believe,’ said Miss Fowler suddenly, ’that old people and young people slip from under a stroke like this.  The middle-aged feel it most.’

‘I expect that’s true,’ said Mary, rising.  ’I’m going to put away the things in his room now.  Shall we wear mourning?’

‘Certainly not,’ said Miss Fowler.  ’Except, of course, at the funeral.  I can’t go.  You will.  I want you to arrange about his being buried here.  What a blessing it didn’t happen at Salisbury!’

Every one, from the Authorities of the Flying Corps to the Rector, was most kind and sympathetic.  Mary found herself for the moment in a world where bodies were in the habit of being despatched by all sorts of conveyances to all sorts of places.  And at the funeral two young men in buttoned-up uniforms stood beside the grave and spoke to her afterwards.

‘You’re Miss Postgate, aren’t you?’ said one.  ’Fowler told me about you.  He was a good chap—­a first-class fellow—­a great loss.’

‘Great loss!’ growled his companion.  ‘We’re all awfully sorry.’

‘How high did he fall from?’ Mary whispered.

’Pretty nearly four thousand feet, I should think, didn’t he?  You were up that day, Monkey?’

‘All of that,’ the other child replied.  ’My bar made three thousand, and I wasn’t as high as him by a lot.’

‘Then that’s all right,’ said Mary.  ‘Thank you very much.’

They moved away as Mrs. Grant flung herself weeping on Mary’s flat chest, under the lych-gate, and cried, ’I know how it feels! I know how it feels!’

‘But both his parents are dead,’ Mary returned, as she fended her off.  ‘Perhaps they’ve all met by now,’ she added vaguely as she escaped towards the coach.

‘I’ve thought of that too,’ wailed Mrs. Grant; ’but then he’ll be practically a stranger to them.  Quite embarrassing!’

Mary faithfully reported every detail of the ceremony to Miss Fowler, who, when she described Mrs. Grant’s outburst, laughed aloud.

’Oh, how Wynn would have enjoyed it!  He was always utterly unreliable at funerals.  D’you remember—­’ And they talked of him again, each piecing out the other’s gaps.  ‘And now,’ said Miss Fowler, ’we’ll pull up the blinds and we’ll have a general tidy.  That always does us good.  Have you seen to Wynn’s things?’

‘Everything—­since he first came,’ said Mary.  ’He was never destructive—­even with his toys.’

They faced that neat room.

‘It can’t be natural not to cry,’ Mary said at last.  ’I’m so afraid you’ll have a reaction.’

’As I told you, we old people slip from under the stroke.  It’s you I’m afraid for.  Have you cried yet?’