omeone seized Taffy's college cap and sent it spinning
over the battlements. Caps? For a second or two they darkened the
sky like a flock of birds. A few gowns followed, expanding as they
dropped, like clumsy parachutes. The company--all but a few severe
dons and their friends--tumbled laughing down the ladder, down the
winding stair, and out into sunshine. The world was pagan after all.

At breakfast Taffy found a letter on his table, addressed in his
mother's hand. As a rule she wrote twice a week, and this was not
one of the usual days for hearing from her. But nothing was too good
to happen that morning. He snatched up the letter and broke the
seal.

"My dearest boy," it ran, "I want you home at once to consult with
me. Something has happened (forgive me, dear, for not preparing you;
but the blow fell on me yesterday so suddenly)--something which makes
it doubtful, and more than doubtful, that you can continue at Oxford.
And something else _they say_ has happened which I will never believe
in unless I hear it from my boy's lips. I have this comfort, at any
rate, that he will never tell me a falsehood. This is a matter which
cannot be explained by letter, and cannot wait until the end of term.
Come home quickly, dear; for until you are here I can have no peace
of mind."

So once again Taffy travelled homewards by the night mail.

"Mother, it's a lie!"

Taffy's face was hot, but he looked straight into his mother's eyes.
She too was rosy-red: being ever a shamefast woman. And to speak of
these things to her own boy--

"Thank God!" she murmured, and her fingers gripped the arms of her
chair.

"It's a lie! Where is the girl?"

"She is in the workhouse, I believe. I don't know who spread it, or
how many have heard. But Honoria believes it."

"Honoria! She cannot--" He came to a sudden halt. "But, mother,
even supposing Honoria believes it, I don't see--"

He was looking straight at her. Her eyes sank. Light began to break
in on him.

"Mother!"

Humility did not look up.

"Mother! Don't tell me that she--that Honoria--"

"She made us promise--your father and me. . . . God knows it did no
more than repay what your father had suffered. . . . Your future was
everything to us. . . ."

"And I have been maintained at Oxford by her money," he said, pausing
in his bitterness on every word.

"Not by that only, Taffy! There was your scholarship . . . and it
was true about my savings