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 pla