“He called for me?”

“Many times.”

They went up the stairs together and stood beside the bed.  The thought uppermost in Taffy’s mind was—­“He called for me.  He wanted me.  He was my father and I never knew him.”

But Humility in her sorrow groped amid such questions as these, “What has happened?  Who am I?  Am I she who yesterday had a husband and a child?  To-day my husband is gone and my child is no longer the same child.”

In her room old Mrs. Venning remembered the first days of her own widowhood, and life seemed to her a very short affair, after all.

Honoria saw Taffy beside the grave.  It was no season for out-of-door flowers, and she had rifled her hothouses for a wreath.  The exotics shivered in the north-westerly wind; they looked meaningless, impertinent, in the gusty churchyard.  Humility, before the coffin left the house, had brought the dead man’s old blue working-blouse, and spread it for a pall.  No flowers grew in the Parsonage garden; but pressed in her Bible lay a very little bunch, gathered, years ago, in the meadows by Honiton.  This she divided and, unseen by anyone, pinned the half upon the breast of the patched garment.

On the evening after the funeral and for the next day or two she was strangely quiet, and seemed to be waiting for Taffy to make some sign.  Dearly as mother and son loved one another, they had to find their new positions, each toward each.  Now Taffy had known nothing of his parents’ income.  He assumed that it was little enough, and that he must now leave Oxford and work to support the household.  He knew some Latin and Greek; but without a degree he had little chance of teaching what he knew.  He was a fair carpenter, and a more than passable smith. . . .  He revolved many schemes, but chiefly found himself wondering what it would cost to enter an architect’s office.

“I suppose,” said he, “father left no will?”

“Oh yes, he did,” said Humility, and produced it:  a single sheet of foolscap signed on her wedding day.  It gave her all her husband’s property absolutely—­whatever it might be.

“Well,” said Taffy, “I’m glad.  I suppose there’s enough for you to rent a small cottage, while I look about for work?”

“Who talks about your finding work?  You will go back to Oxford, of course.”

“Oh, shall I?” said Taffy, taken aback.

“Certainly; it was your father’s wish.”

“But the money?”

“With your scholarship there’s enough to keep you there for the four years.  After that, no doubt, you will be earning a good income.”

“But—­” He remembered what had been said about the lace-money, and could not help wondering.

“Taffy,” said his mother, touching his hand, “leave all this to me until your degree is taken.  You have a race to run and must not start unprepared.  If you could have seen his joy when the news came of the demy-ship!”