"Don't you see, Mo," said Aunt M'riar. "He'd no call to come here, exceptin'. It was only to oblige-like, and let know. Once Micky gave his word, what call had he to come four mile through such a fog?"
"That's the whole tale, then?" said Uncle Mo, after reflection. "Onlest you can call to mind something you've forgot, Master Micky."
"Not a half a word, Mr. Moses. If there had a been, I'd have made you acquainted, and no lies. And all I said's ackerate, and to rely on." Which was perfectly true, so far as reporter's good faith went. 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."