Even his ivy-covered cottage, in which his wife and he had lived for twenty years, in which their one child had died, would at the beginning of the next term be required of him.

But the college would allow him those six months in which to "look round." So, just outside the circle of light from his student lamp, he sat in his study, and stared with unseeing eyes at the bust of Socrates.

He was not considering ways and means.

They must be faced later.

He was considering how he could possibly break the blow to his wife.