He looked ten years older than he had done at the time of their conversation in the night nursery a few days ago. Horatia's heart smote her as—not for the first time—she realised the change, and her eyes were full of tears when, kneeling down by him she put her arms round him and kissed the white hair by his temple.
"Dearest Papa, you can't be going to give him all those toys; it will be so bad for him! Keep some of them for next Christmas."
She had said it without thinking.
"And where ... where will he be then?" asked her father rather gulpily. A single tear splashed on to the drum which he had succeeded in pulling from the stocking. Horatia bit her lip hard.
"I think, dear, that we shall always come home for Christmas. Or else you will come to us. You will have a curate soon; you know we discussed it the other day, and then you will be so free.—What a splendid drum! Where did you get all these things, you secretive old Papa? Surely not in Oxford?"
"I bought them when I was in London the other day, at the Soho Bazaar. I was thinking that we should have such a pleasant Christmas...."
A stab went through Horatia's heart. That broken vision of his was in her mind too—the Christmas hearth, Tristram with the child in his arms, prefigurement of what should be henceforward ... and what would now never be.
"It will be Maurice's third Christmas," went on the Rector, with an attempt at cheerfulness, thinking from her silence and averted face that he had been too cruel. "I made up my mind last Christmas that he should have——"
A knock caused him to scramble hastily from his unwonted position. Horatia jumped up and went to the door. Martha stood there.
"Please, Mam, would you come to the nursery. I don't think Master Maurice seems quite himself."