t. Had
Micky overheard the conversation two minutes sooner, he would have
gathered that Mr. Wix had other reasons for coming to Sapps Court than
to give the news of Mrs. Prichard's death. Indeed, it is not clear why,
intending to go there for another purpose, Wix thought it necessary to
employ Michael at all as an ambassador. But a story has to be content
with facts.

Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar were alone with the shadow of their trouble,
and the knowledge that the children must be told.

The boy and his mother, their painful message delivered, had vanished
through the fog to their own home. The voices of Dave and Dolly came
from the room above through the silence that followed. Mo and M'riar
were at no loss to guess what was the burden of that earnest debate that
rose and fell, and paused and was renewed, but never died outright. It
was the endless arrangement and rearrangement of the preparations for
the great event to come, the feast that was to welcome old Mrs. Picture
back to her fireside, and its chair with cushions.

"Oh, Mo--Mo! I haven't the heart--I haven't the heart to do it."

"Poor old M'riar--poor old M'riar!" The old prizefighter's voice was
tender with its sorrow for his old comrade, who shrank from the task
that faced them, one or both; even sorrow--though less oppressive--for
the loss of the old lady who had become the children's idol.

"No, Mo, I haven't the heart. Only this very day ... if it hadn't been
for the fog ... Dave would have got the last halfpenny out of his rabbit
to buy a sugar-basin on the stall in the road ... and he's saving it for
a surprise for Dolly ... when the fog goes...."

"Is Susan Burr upstairs with them?"

"No--she's gone out to Yardley's for some thread. She's all right. She's
walking a lot better."

They sat silent for a while, the unconscious voices overhead reaching
their hearts, and rousing the question they would have been so glad to
ignore. How should they bring it to the children's knowledge that the
chair with cushions was waiting for its occupant in vain? Which of their
unwilling hands should be the first to draw aside the veil that still
sheltered those two babies' lives from the sight of the face of Death.

The man was the first to speak. "Young Mick, he saw his way pretty
sharp, M'riar--about who was ... her son." His voice dropped on the
reference to old Maisie herself, and he avoided her name.

"Did he understand?"

"Oh yes--he twigged, fast enough.