"It's no use, Ronny, you're saying you know they're there. I don't. I'd give anything to believe it. And yet it wouldn't be a bit of good if I did. I don't want them all changed into something spiritual that I shouldn't know if it was there. I want their bodies with me just as they used to be. I want to hear them and touch them, and see them come in in their old clothes.
"To see Nicky standing on the hearthrug with Timmy in his arms. I want things like that, Ronny. Even if you're right, it's all clean gone."
Her lips tightened.
"I'm talking as if I was, the only one. But I know it's worse for you, Ronny. I had them all those years. And I've got Anthony. You've had nothing but your poor three days."
Veronica thought: "How can I tell her that I've got more than she thinks? It's awful that I should have what she hasn't." She was ashamed and beaten before this irreparable, mortal grief.
"And it's worse," Frances said, "for the wretched mothers whose sons haven't fought."
For her pride rose in her again--the pride that uplifted her supernaturally when Nicky died.
"You mustn't think I grudge them. I don't. I don't even grudge John."
The silence of Michael's room sank into them, it weighed on their hearts and they were afraid of each other's voices. Frances was glad when Dorothy came and they could begin their work there.
But Michael had not left them much to do. They found his papers all in one drawer of his writing-table, sorted and packed and labelled, ready for Morton Ellis to take away. One sealed envelope lay in a place by itself. Frances thought: "He didn't want any of us to touch his things."