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.