believe in it a bit, and at times when he composes his features and attempts to be lugubrious I have to take up a book and hide my smiles.  But he is clever enough to see that it worries George.”

“I saw both your father and mother this morning.  Mr. Raymond has been kept to the house by a chill; nothing serious:  but he is fretting to be out again and at work in that draughty church.  He will accept no help; and the mistress of Tredinnis has no right to press it on him.  I shall never understand men and how they fight.  I supposed that the war lay between him and my grandfather.  But it seems he was fighting an idea all the while; for here is my grandfather beaten and dead and gone; and still the Vicar will give no quarter.  If you had not assured me that your demy-ship means eighty pounds a year, I could believe that men fight for shadows only.  Your mother and grandmother are both well. . . .”

It was a raw December afternoon—­within a week of the end of term—­ and Taffy had returned from skating in Christ Church meadow, when he found a telegram lying on his table.  There was just time to see the Dean, to pack, and to snatch a meal in hall, before rattling off to his train.  At Didcot he had the best part of an hour to wait for the night-mail westward.

     “Your father dangerously ill.  Come at once.”

There was no signature.  Yet Taffy knew who had ridden to the office with that telegram.  The flying dark held visions of her, and the express throbbed westward to the beat of Aide-de-camp’s gallop.  Nor was he surprised at all to find her on the platform at Truro Station.  The Tredinnis phaeton was waiting outside.

He seemed to her but a boy after all, as he stepped out of the train in the chill dawn:  a wan-faced boy, and sorely in need of comfort.

“You must be brave,” said she, gathering up the reins as he climbed to the seat beside her.

Surely yes; he had been telling himself this very thing all night.  The groom hoisted in his portmanteau, and with a slam of the door they were off.  The cold air sang past Taffy’s ears.  It put vigour into him, and his courage rose as he faced his shattered prospects, shattered dreams.  He must be strong now for his mother’s sake; a man to work and be leant upon.

And so it was that whereas Honoria had found him a boy, Humility found him a man.  As her arms went about him in her grief, she felt his body, that it was taller, broader; and knew in the midst of her tears that this was not the child she had parted from seven short weeks ago, but a man to act and give orders and be relied upon.

“He called for you . . . many times,” was all she could say.

For Taffy had come too late.  Mr. Raymond was dead.  He had aggravated a slight chill by going back to his work too soon, and the bitter draughts of the church had cut him down within sight of his goal.  A year before he might have been less impatient.  The chill struck into his lungs.  On December 1st he had taken to his bed, and he never rallied.