And with the first beat of the drum Veronica’s soul came down from its place, and took part in the Procession.  As long as they played the Marseillaise she felt that she could march with the Procession to the ends of the world; she could march into battle to the Marseillaise; she could fight to that music and die.

The women behind her were singing under their breath.  They sang the words of the Women’s Marseillaise.

And Veronica, marching in front of them by herself, sang another song.  She sang the Marseillaise of Heine and of Schumann.

     “’Daun reitet mein Kaiser wohl ueber mein Grab,
     Viel’ Schwerter klirren und blitzen;
      Dann steig’ ich gewaffnet hervor aus mein Grab,—­
      Den Kaiser, den Kaiser zu schuetzen!’”

The front of the Procession lifted as it went up Tyburn Hill.

Veronica could not see Michael and Nicholas, but she knew that they were there.  She knew it by the unusual steadiness of the standard that they carried.  Far away westwards, in the middle and front of the Procession, the purple and the blue, the gold and white, the green, the scarlet and orange and magenta standards rocked and staggered; they bent forwards; they were flung backwards as the west wind took them.  But the red, white and blue standard that Michael and Nicholas carried went before her, steady and straight and high.

And Veronica followed, carrying her thin, tall pole with the olive wreath on the top of it, and the white dove sitting in the ring of the wreath.  She went with the music of Schumann and Heine sounding in her soul.

XVII

Another year passed.

Frances was afraid for Michael now.  Michael was being drawn in.  Because of his strange thoughts he was the one of all her children who had most hidden himself from her; who would perhaps hide himself from her to the very end.

Nicholas had settled down.  He had left the Morss Company and gone into his father’s business for a while, to see whether he could stand it.  John was going into the business too when he left Oxford.  John was even looking forward to his partnership in what he called “the Pater’s old tree-game.”  He said, “You wait till I get my hand well in.  Won’t we make it rip!”

John was safe.  You could depend on him to keep out of trouble.  He had no genius for adventure.  He would never strike out for himself any strange or dangerous line.  He had settled down at Cheltenham; he had settled down at Oxford.

And Dorothea had settled down.