'I was the only one who loved her,' he muttered to himself, and pushing back his chair he got up and left the room. He almost tottered; he had aged twenty years in the night.
'Aren't you going to have any pudding?' asked his wife.
He made no answer.
He walked out into the courtyard quite aimlessly, but the force of habit took him to the workshop, where, every Sunday afternoon, he was used to going after dinner to see that everything was in order, and to-day also he opened the window, put away a tool which the men had left about, examined the Saturday's work....
Mrs Griffith and George, stiff and ill at ease in his clumsy Sunday clothes, went on with their dinner.
'D'you think the vicar knew?' he asked as soon as the father had closed the door.
'I don't think he'd have asked if he had. Mrs Gray might, but he's too simple—unless she put him up to it.'
'I thought I should never get round with the plate,' said George. Mr Griffith, being a carpenter, which is respectable and well-to-do, which is honourable, had been made churchwarden, and part of his duty was to take round the offertory plate. This duty George performed in his father's occasional absences, as when a coffin was very urgently required.
'I wasn't going to let them get anything out of me,' said Mrs Griffith, defiantly.
All through the service a number of eyes had been fixed on them, eager to catch some sign of emotion, full of horrible curiosity to know what the Griffiths felt and thought; but Mrs Griffith had been inscrutable.