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