on the lace-work. . . ."

But he brushed her feeble explanations away with a little gesture of
impatience. "Oh why, mother?--Oh why?"

She heard him groan and stretched out her arms.

"Taffy, forgive me--forgive us! We did wrongly, I see--I see it as
plain now as you. But we did it for your sake."

"You should have told me. I was not a child. Yes, yes, you should
have told me."

Yes; there lay the truth. They had treated him as a child when he
was no longer a child. They had swathed him round with love,
forgetting that boys grow and demand to see with their own eyes and
walk on their own feet. To every mother of sons there comes sooner
or later the sharp lesson which came to Humility that morning; and
few can find any defence but that which Humility stammered, sitting
in her chair and gazing piteously up at the tall youth confronting
her: "I did it for your sake." Be pitiful, oh accusing sons, in that
hour! For, terrible as your case may be against them, your mothers
are speaking the simple truth.

Taffy took her hand. "The money must be paid back, every penny of
it."

"Yes, dear."

"How much?"

Humility kept a small account-book in the work-box beside her.
She opened the pages, but, seeing his outstretched hand, gave it
obediently to Taffy, who took it to the window.

"Almost two hundred pounds." He knit his brows and began to drum with
his fingers on the window-pane. "And we must put the interest at
five per cent. . . . With my first in Moderations I might find some
post as an usher in a small school. . . . There's an agency which
puts you in the way of such things: I must look up the address. . . .
We will leave this house, of course."

"Must we?"

"Why of course we must. We are living here by _her_ favour.
A cottage will do--only it must have four rooms, because of
grandmother. . . . I will step over and talk with Mendarva.
He may be able to give me a job. It will keep me going, at any rate,
until I hear from the agency."

"You forget that I have over forty pounds a year--or, rather, mother
has. The capital came from the sale of her farm, years ago."

"Did it?" said Taffy grimly. "You forget that I have never been
told. Well, that's good, so far as it goes. But now I'll step over
and see Mendarva. If only I could catch this cowardly lie somewhere
on my way!"

He kissed his mother, caught up his cap, and flung out of the house.
The sea breeze came humming across the sandhills.