represented the extremity of disaster.

They might have known what was coming by Grannie's behaviour. One day,
the day when the Australian mail arrived, she had subsided suddenly into
a state of softness and gentleness. She approached her son-in-law with
an air of sorrowful deprecation; she showed a certain deference to her
daughter Louie; she was soft and gentle even with Emmeline and Edith.

Mrs. Fleming broke the news to Louie who broke it to Frances who in her
turn broke it to Anthony. That was the procedure they invariably
adopted.

"I wonder," Grannie said, "what he can be coming back for!" Each time
she affected astonishment and incredulity, as if Morrie's coming back
were, not a recurrence that crushed you with its flatness and staleness,
but a thing that must interest Louie because of its utter un-likeliness.

"I wonder," said Louie, "why he hasn't come before. What else did you
expect?"

"I'm sure I don't know," said Grannie helplessly. "Go and tell Frances."

Louie went. And because she knew that the burden of Morrie would fall
again on Frances's husband she was disagreeable with Frances.

"It's all very well for you," she said. "You haven't got to live with
him. You haven't got to sleep in the room next him. You don't know what
it's like."

"I do know," said Frances. "I remember. You'll have to bear it."

"You haven't had to bear it for fourteen years."

"You'll have to bear it," Frances repeated, "till Anthony sends him out
again. That's all it amounts to."

She waited till the children were in bed and she was alone with Anthony.

"Something awful's happened," she said, and paused hoping he would
guess.

"I don't know how to tell you."

"Don't tell me if it's that Nicky's been taking my new bike to pieces."

"It isn't Nicky--It's Maurice."

Anthony got up and cleared his pipe, thoroughly and deliberately. She
wondered whether he had heard.

"I'd no business to have married you--to have let you in for him."

"Why? What's he been up to now?"

"He's coming home."

"So," said Anthony, "is Bartholomew. I'd no business to have let you in
for _him_."

"Don't worry, Frances. If Morrie comes home he'll be sent out again,
that's all."

"At your expense."

"I don't grudge any expense in sending Morrie out. Nor in keeping him
out."

"Yes. But this time it's different. It's worse."

"Why worse?"

"Because of the children. They're older now than they were last time.
They'll understand.