The Tree of Heaven. Sinclair May

midsummer holidays by two months.

      Nicky at the seaside was troublesome and happy, and they thought he had forgotten. But on the first evening at Hampstead, as Frances kissed him Good-night, he said: "Shall I have to see Mr. Parsons to-morrow?"

      Frances said: "Yes. Of course."

      "I'd rather not."

      "Nonsense, you must get over that."

      "I--can't, Mummy."

      "Oh, Nicky, can't you forgive poor Mr. Parsons? When he was so unhappy?"

      Nicky meditated.

      "Do you think," he said at last, "he really minded?"

      "I'm sure he did."

      "As much as you and Daddy?"

      "Quite as much."

      "Then," said Nicky, "I'll forgive him."

      But, though he forgave John and Mr. Parsons and even God, who, to do him justice, did not seem to have been able to help it, Nicky did not forgive himself.

      Yet Frances never could think why the sight of mustard and cress made Nicky sick. Neither did Mr. Parsons, nor any schoolmaster who came after him understand why, when Nicky knew all the rest of the verb [Greek: erchomai] by heart he was unable to remember the second aorist.

      He excellent memory, but there was always a gap in it just there.

VI

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      In that peace and tranquillity where nothing ever happened, Jerry's violent death would have counted as an event, a date to reckon by; but for three memorable things that happened, one after another, in the summer and autumn of 'ninety-nine: the return of Frances's brother, Maurice Fleming, from Australia where Anthony had sent him two years ago, on the express understanding that he was to stay there; the simultaneous arrival of Anthony's brother, Bartholomew, and his family; and the outbreak of the Boer War.

      The return of Morrie was not altogether unforeseen, and Bartholomew had announced his coming well beforehand, but who could have dreamed that at the end of the nineteenth century England would be engaged in a War that really was a War? Frances, with the Times in her hands, supposed that that meant more meddling and muddling of stupid politicians, and that it would mean more silly speeches in Parliament, and copy, at last, for foolish violent, pathetic and desperate editors, and breach of promise cases, divorces and fires in paraffin shops reduced to momentary insignificance.

      But as yet there was no war, nor any appearance that sensible people interpreted as a sign of war at the time of Morrie's return. It stood alone, as other past returns, the return from Bombay, the return from Canada, the return from Cape Colony, had stood, in its sheer awfulness. To Frances it 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."

      "What if they do? They must learn," Anthony said, "to realize facts."

      They realized them rather sooner than he had expected. Nobody but Louie had allowed for the possibility of Morrie's sailing by the same steamer as his letter; and Louie had argued that, if he had done so, he was bound either to have arrived before the letter or to have sent a wire. Therefore they had at least a clear five days of peace before them. Anthony thought he had shown wisdom when, the next morning which was a Wednesday, he sent Grannie and the Aunties to Eastbourne for a week, so that they shouldn't worry Frances, and when on Thursday he made her go with him for a long day in the country, to take her mind off Morrie.

      They came back at nine in the evening and found Dorothy, Michael and Nicholas sitting up for them. Michael and Nicky were excited, but Dorothy looked grown-up and important.

      "Uncle Morrie's come," they said.

      "Dorothy saw him first--"

      "Nicky let him in--"

      "He hadn't got a hat on."

      "We kept him in the schoolroom till Nanna could come and put him to bed."

      "He was crying because he'd been to Grannie's house and there wasn't anybody there--"

      "And because he'd lost the love-birds he'd brought for Auntie Emmy--"

      "And because he couldn't remember which of us was dead."

      "No, Mummy, nobody's seen him but us and Nanna."

      "Nanna's with him now."

      Uncle Morrie never accounted, even to himself, for the time he had spent between the arrival of his ship at Tilbury on Sunday morning and that Saturday afternoon. Neither could he remember what had become of his luggage or whether he had ever had any. Only the County Council man, going his last rounds in the farthest places of the Heath, came upon a small bundle tied in a blue handkerchief, a cap belonging to E.D. Boulger, of the S.S. Arizona, a cage of love-birds, and a distinct impression of a recumbent human form, on the grass together, under