He thought of John. John had volunteered three times and had been three
times rejected. And now conscription had got him. He had to appear
before the Board of Examiners that afternoon. He might be rejected
again. But the standard was not so exacting as it had been--John
might be taken.

He thought of his business--John's business and his, and Bartie's. Those
big Government contracts had more than saved them. They were making tons
of money out of the War. Even when the Government cut down their
profits; even when they had given more than half they made to the War
funds, the fact remained that they were living on the War. Bartie,
without a wife or children, was appallingly rich.

If John were taken. If John were killed--

If Michael died--

Michael had been reported seriously wounded.

He had thought then of Michael. And he had not been able to bear
thinking any more. He had got up and left the workshop, locking the door
behind him, forgetting what he had gone in for; and he had taken the key
back to the house. He kept it in what his children used to call the
secret drawer of his bureau. It lay there with Nicky's last letter of
June, 1915, and a slab of coromandel wood.

It was when he was going into the house with the key that John met him.

"Have they taken you?"

"Yes."

John's face was hard and white. They went together into Anthony's room.

"It's what you wanted," Anthony said.

"Of course it's what I wanted. I want it more than ever now.

"The wire's come, Father. Mother opened it."

       *       *       *       *       *

It was five days now since they had heard that Michael had died of his
wounds. Frances was in Michael's room. She was waiting for Dorothea and
Veronica to help her to find his papers. It was eight o'clock in the
evening, and they had to be sorted and laid out ready for Morton Ellis
to look over them to-morrow. To-morrow Morton Ellis would come, and he
would take them away.

The doors of Michael's and of Nicky's rooms were always kept shut;
Frances knew that, if she were to open the door on the other side of the
corridor and look in, every thing in Nicky's room would welcome her with
tenderness even while it inflicted its unique and separate wound. But
Michael's room was bare and silent. He had cleared everything away out
of her sight last year before he went. The very books on the shelves
repudiated her; reminded her that she had never understood him, that he
had always escaped her. His room kept his secret, and she felt afraid
and abashed in it, knowing herself an intruder. Presently all that was
most precious in it would be taken from her and given over to a stranger
whom he had never liked.

Her mind turned and fastened on one object--the stiff, naked wooden
chair standing in its place before the oak table by the window. She
remembered how she had come to Michael there and found him writing at
his table, and how she had talked to him as though he had been a shirker
and a coward.

She had borne Nicky's death. But she could not bear Michael's. She stood
there in his room, staring, hypnotized by her memory. She heard Dorothea
come in and go out again. And then Veronica came in.

She turned to Veronica to help her.

She clung to Veronica and was jealous of her. Veronica had not come
between her and Nicky as long as he was alive, but now that he was dead
she came between them. She came between her and Michael too. Michael's
mind had always been beyond her; she could only reach it through
Veronica and through Veronica's secret. Her mind clutched at Veronica's
secret, and flung it away as useless, and returned, clutching at
it again.

It was as if Veronica held the souls of Michael and Nicholas in her
hands. She offered her the souls of her dead sons. She was the mediator
between her and their souls.

"I could bear it, Veronica, if I hadn't made him go. I came to him,
here, in this room, and bullied him till he went. I said horrible things
to him--that he must have remembered.

"He wasn't like Nicky--it was infinitely worse for him. And I was cruel
to him. I had no pity. I drove him out--to be killed.

"And I simply cannot bear it."

"But--he didn't go then. He waited till--till he was free. If anybody
could have made him, Nicky could. But it wasn't even Nicky. It was
himself."

"If he'd been killed as Nicky was--but to die like that, in the
hospital--of those horrible wounds."

"He was leading a charge, just as Nicky was. And you know he was happy,
just as Nicky was. Every line he's written shows that he was happy."

"It only shows that they were both full of life, that they loved their
life and wanted to live.

"It's no use, Ronny, you're saying you know they're there. I don't. I'd
give anything to believe it. And yet it wouldn't be a bit of good if I
did. I don't _want_ them all changed into something spiritual that I
shouldn't know if it was there. I want their bodies with me just as they
used to be. I want to hear them and touch them, and see them come in in
their old clothes.

"To see Nicky standing on the hearthrug with Timmy in his arms. I want
things like that, Ronny. Even if you're right, it's all clean gone."

Her lips tightened.

"I'm talking as if I was, the only one. But I know it's worse for you,
Ronny. I _had_ them all those years. And I've got Anthony. You've had
nothing but your poor three days."

Veronica thought: "How can I tell her that I've got more than she
thinks? It's awful that I should have what she hasn't." She was ashamed
and beaten before this irreparable, mortal grief.

"And it's worse," Frances said, "for the wretched mothers whose sons
haven't fought."

For her pride rose in her again--the pride that uplifted her
supernaturally when Nicky died.

"You mustn't think I grudge them. I don't. I don't even grudge John."

The silence of Michael's room sank into them, it weighed on their hearts
and they were afraid of each other's voices. Frances was glad when
Dorothy came and they could begin their work there.

But Michael had not left them much to do. They found his papers all in
one drawer of his writing-table, sorted and packed and labelled, ready
for Morton Ellis to take away. One sealed envelope lay in a place by
itself. Frances thought: "He didn't want any of us to touch his things."

Then she saw Veronica's name on the sealed envelope. She was glad when
Veronica left them and went to her hospital.

And when she was gone she wanted her back again.

"I wish I hadn't spoken that way to Veronica," she said.

"She won't mind. She knows you couldn't help it."

"I could, Dorothy, if I wasn't jealous of her. I mean I'm jealous of her
certainty. If I had it, too, I shouldn't be jealous."

"She wants you to have it. She's trying to give it you.

"Mother--how do we know she isn't right? Nicky said she was. And Michael
said Nicky was right.

"If it had been only Nicky--_he_ might have got it from Veronica. But
Michael never got things from anybody. And you _do_ know things in queer
ways. Even I do. At least I did once--when I was in prison. I knew
something tremendous was going to happen. I saw it, or felt it, or
something. I won't swear I knew it was the War. I don't suppose I did.
But I knew Frank was all mixed up with it. And it was the most awfully
real thing. You couldn't go back on it, or get behind it. It was as if
I'd seen that he and Lawrence and Nicky and Michael and all of them
would die in it to save the whole world. Like Christ, only that they
really _did_ die and the whole world _was_ saved. There was nothing
futile about it."

"Well--?"

"Well, _they_ might see their real thing the same way--in a flash.
Aren't they a thousand times more likely to know than we are? What right
have we--sitting here safe--to say it isn't when they say it is?"

"But--if there's anything in it--why can't I see it as well as you and
Veronica? After all, I'm their mother."

"Perhaps that's why it takes you longer, Mummy. You think of their
bodies more than we do, because they were part of your body. Their
souls, or whatever it is, aren't as real to you just at first."

"I see," said Frances, bitterly. "You've only got to be a mother, and
give your children your flesh and blood, to be sure of their souls going
from you and somebody else getting them."

"That's the price you pay for being mothers."

"Was Frank's soul ever more real to _you_, Dorothy?"

"Yes. It was once--for just one minute. The night he went away. That's
another queer thing that happened."

"It didn't satisfy you, darling, did it?"

"Of course it didn't satisfy me. I want more and more of it. Not just
flashes."

"You say it's the price we pay for being mothers. Yet if Veronica had
had a child--"

"You needn't be so sorry for Veronica."

"I'm not. It's you I'm sorriest for. You've had nothing. From beginning
to end you had nothing.

"I might at least have seen that you had it in the beginning."

"_You_, Mummy?"

"Yes. Me. You _shall_ have it now. Unless you want to leave me."

"I wouldn't leave you for the world, Mummy ducky. Only you must let me
work always and all the time."

"Let you? I'll let you do what you like, my dear."

"You always have let me, haven't you?"

"It was the least I could do."

"Poor Mummy, did you think you had to make up because you cared for them
more than me?"

"I wonder," said Frances, thoughtfully, "if I did."

"Of course. Of course you did. Who wouldn't?"

"I never meant you to know it, Dorothy."

"Of course I knew it. I must have known it ever since Michael was born.
I knew you couldn't help it. You had to. Even when I was a tiresome kid
I knew you had to. It was natural."

"Natural or unnatural, many girls have hated their mothers for less.
You've been very big and generous.

"Perhaps--if you'd been little and weak--but you were always such an
independent thing. I used to think you didn't want me."

"I wanted you a lot more than you thought. But, you see, I've learned to
do without."

She thought: "It's better she should have it straight."

"If you'd think less about me, Mother," she said, "and more about
Father--"

"Father?"

"Yes. Father isn't independent--though he looks it. He wants you
awfully. He always has wanted you. And he hasn't learned to do without."

"Where is he?"

"He's sitting out there in the garden, all by himself, in the dark,
under the tree."

Frances went to him there.

"I wondered whether you would come to me," he said.

"I was doing something for Michael."

"Is it done?"

"Yes. It's done."

       *       *       *       *       *

Five months passed. It was November now.

In the lane by the side door, Anthony was waiting in his car. Rain was
falling, hanging from the trees and falling. Every now and then he
looked at his watch.

He had still a quarter of an hour before he need start. But he was not
going back into the house. They were all in there saying good-bye to
John: old Mrs. Fleming, and Louie and Emmeline and Edith. And Maurice.
And his brother Bartie.

The door in the garden wall opened and they came out: the four women in
black--the black they still wore for Michael--and the two men.

They all walked slowly up the lane. Anthony could see Bartie's shoulders
hunched irritably against the rain. He could see Morrie carrying his
sodden, quivering body with care and an exaggerated sobriety. He saw
Grannie, going slowly, under the umbrella, very upright and conscious of
herself as wonderful and outlasting.

He got down and cranked up his engine.

Then he sat sternly in his car and waited, with his hands on the
steering-wheel, ready.

The engine throbbed, impatient for the start.

John came out very quickly and took his seat beside his father. And the
car went slowly towards the high road.

Uncle Morrie stood waiting for it by the gate at the top of the lane. As
it passed through he straightened himself and put up his hand in a
crapulous salute.

The young man smiled at him, saluted, and was gone