Bill by the energies of
the Liberal Whips was talked out (wasn't it?). At any rate it came
to nothing for that Session. Vivie took this as a decision. She
openly declared that the Vote never would be given by the House of
Commons or House of Lords until it was wrung from the Legislature by
a complete dislocation of public affairs, the nearest approach to a
revolution women could bring about without rifles and cannon.

Meantime she refused to be duped by Ministers or by amiable
go-betweens. She resolved instead, perhaps for the last time, to
resume the clothes and status of David Williams, go down to Wales,
and stay with her father who was dying by slow degrees.

The letters which the curate had written from time to time to D.V.
Williams, Esq., care of Michael Rossiter, Esq., F.R.S., and usually
forwarded on by Bertie Adams, had told David how much the Revd.
Howel Williams had failed since the cold spring of 1909, and how in
the colder spring of 1910 he had once or twice narrowly survived
influenza. In July, 1910, he was dying of heart failure.
Nevertheless the return of David, his well-beloved, brought to him a
flicker of renewed life, a little pink in the cheeks, and some
garrulity.

He could hardly bear his darling son out of his sight, except for
the narrowest margin of necessary sleep; and often David slept
sitting up in an arm-chair in the Vicar's bedroom. The Revd. Howel
said nothing more about grandchildren; often--with a finer
sense--spoke to him not as though he were a son, but as a beloved
daughter. At last he died in his sleep one night, holding David's
hand, looking so ineffably happy that the impostor inwardly gloried
in his imposture as in one of the best deeds of his chequered life.

* * * * *

The will, of course, had not been changed, and David inherited all
his "father's" property. Out of it he settled L500 on the
miner's--or rather Jenny's--son who probably _was_ the offspring of
the real David Williams's boyish amour. He provided a handsome
annuity for poor, shaken, old Nannie; and the rest of the money
after paying all expenses he laid out on the endowment of a Village
Hall for games and study, social meetings and political discussions,
together with provision for an annual stipend of a hundred pounds
for the Vicar or curate of the parish who should run this Hall:
which was to be a lasting memorial to the Reverend Howel Vaughan
Williams, so learned in the lore o