“These trying times make one inclined to draw closer together,” she urged, and it seemed to them good, and the matter was decided on. Vic, usually so light-hearted and full of talk, had become the silent member of the household. She had suffered a sore wound, and it was the harder to bear because it was more or less of a hidden wound and not to be spoken of or sympathised with. She went for days like a stricken thing, scarcely speaking to any of them and preferring solitude. Then Mrs Dare ventured on her privacy and got her to talk about Noel, and they cried together over their loss and both felt the better for it. And presently she and Mrs Dare went across to see Mrs MacLean and Honor, and in their efforts to cheer and comfort Gregor’s mother they found some consolation themselves. Mrs MacLean begged so anxiously to be allowed to keep Honor with her still that Mrs Dare could not find in her heart to say no. They were like mother and daughter, and Mrs MacLean’s only hope for the future was that the relationship which might have been should be realised as nearly as possible--as though Honor and Gregor had been married before he went out. “I have thought sometimes when I saw in the papers about young people getting married like that that it was not very wise,” said the old lady. “But now I see it differently. It is the best thing to do, for it puts everything on a proper and legal footing. But, my dear, I know how very dear you were to him, and you are just as dear to me as if you had been married. Stay with me as long as you can put up with me. My heart would be very empty without you.” And Honor kissed her and promised to stay. “You see, my dear,” said the old lady, another time, to Honor’s very great surprise, “I have no one very near to me in kin, and I know just what our boy would have wished me to do. That large blue letter that came this morning was from Mr Worrall, the solicitor to the firm, and it contained a copy of Gregor’s will, which he had the good thought to make before he left. The bulk of his father’s money came to me, of course, and would have passed on to him when my time came. God has willed that otherwise, but I can still do what I know would have pleased him--which I know will still please him if he is still concerned with us below here, as both you and I rejoice to believe. Mr Worrall tells me he left all he had to you, and it may be somewhere about twenty thousand pounds----” “Oh--but----” But the old lady’s tremulous white hand constrained her to hear her out. “And when I go, my dear, there is no one in the world he would have desired the rest--or most of it--to go to but yourself.” But Honor’s head was down in the motherly lap and she was sobbing heart-brokenly.