"U, P, A, S. Oh, Ronnie, what do you mean?"

He paused, and shading his eyes, looked away over the sunny sea to where the vessels, from the Hook of Holland, come into port.

"Just that," he said. "Exactly that. Utterly, preposterously, altogether, selfish. That is the Upas tree."

"Oh, Ronnie," she cried, "if you knew—"

But Ronnie had seen a bowler hat behind the hedge. He called its wearer forward.

"Mrs. West tells me you are my valet," he said. "Kindly show me to my room."



CHAPTER XVI

"HE MUST REMEMBER"

Dick arrived very early the next morning, having to be off again by the twelve o'clock train, in order to reach that evening the place where he was due to spend Christmas.

A telegram from Helen had prepared him for a change in Ronnie, but hardly for the complete restoration of mental balance which he saw in his friend, as they hailed one another at the railway station.

Ronnie had breakfasted early, in order to meet Dick's train. He had said nothing of his plan to Helen, merely arranging his breakfast-hour overnight with the "valet."

He walked to the station alone; but, arrived there, found the "valet" on the platform.

"Thought I might be wanted, sir, to carry the doctor's bag," he explained, touching his hat. But, just as the train rounded the bend, he remarked: "Better stand back a little, sir," and took Ronnie firmly by the arm.

Ronnie could have knocked him down; but realised that this would be the surest way to find himself more than ever hedged in by precautions. So he stood back, in wrathful silence, and, as Dick's gay face appeared at the window of a third-class smoker, the "valet" loosed his hold and disappeared. It may here be recorded that this was the last time Ronnie saw him. Apparently he found it necessary to carry Dr. Dick's bag all the way back to town.

"Hullo, old chap!" cried Dick.

"Hullo, Dick!" said Ronnie. "This is better than Leipzig, old man. I'm all right. I must give you a new thermometer!"

"You shall," said Dick. "After Christmas we'll have a spree together in town and choose it. No need to tell me you 're all right, Ronnie. It's writ large on you, my boy. He who runs may read!"

"Well, I wish you'd write it large on other people," said Ronnie, as they walked out of the station.

"What do you mean?"

"Dick, I'm having a devil of a time! There's a smug chap in a bowler hat who is supposed to be my valet. When I went to bed last night, I found I had a decent room enough, opening out of the sitting-room. I was obviously expected to turn in there, asking no questions; so I turned in. But the valet person slept in a room communicating with mine. The latch and the lock of the door between, had been tampered with. The door wouldn't shut, so I had to sleep all night with that fellow able to look in upon me at any moment. After I had been in bed a little while, I remembered something I had left in the sitting-room and wanted. I got up quietly to fetch it. That door was locked, on the sitting-room side!"

"Poor old boy! We'll soon put all that right. You see you were pretty bad, while you were bad; and all kinds of precautions were necessary. We felt sure of a complete recovery, and I always predicted that it would be sudden. But it is bound to take a little while to get all your surroundings readjusted. Why not go home at once? Pack up and go back to Hollymead this afternoon, and have a real jolly Christmas there—you, and Helen, and the kid."

"The kid?" queried Ronnie, perplexed. "What kid? Oh, you mean my 'cello—the Infant of Prague."

Dick, meanwhile, had bitten his tongue severely.

"Yes, the jolly old Infant of Prague, of course. Is it 'he,' 'she,' or 'it'? I forget."

"It," replied Ronnie, gravely. "In the peace of its presence one forgets all wearying 'he and she' problems. Yes, I want most awfully to get back to my 'cello. I want to make sure it is not broken; and I want to make sure it is no dream, that I can play. But—I don't want to go, unless I can go alone. Can't you prescribe complete solitude, as being absolutely essential for me? Dick, I'm wretched! I don't care where I go; but I want to get away by myself."

"Why, old man?"

"Because my wife still considers me insane."

"Nonsense, Ron! And don't talk of being insane. You were never that. Some subtle malarial poison, we shall never know what, got into your blood, affected your brain, and you've had a bad time—a very bad time—of being completely off your balance; the violent stage being followed by loss of memory, and for a time, though mercifully you knew nothing about it, complete loss of sight. But these things returned, one by one; and, as soon as you were ready for it, you awoke to consciousness, memory, and reason. There is no possible fear of the return of any of the symptoms, unless you come again in contact with the poison; hardly likely, as it attacked you in Central Africa. Of course, as I say, we shall never know precisely what the poison was."

Then Ronnie spoke, suddenly. "It was the Upas tree," he said. "I camped near it. My nightmares began that night. I never felt well, from that hour."

"Rubbish!" said Dr. Dick. "More likely a poisonous swamp. The Upas tree is a myth."

"Not at all," insisted Ronnie. "It is a horrid reality. I had seen the one in Kew Gardens. I recognised it directly, yet I camped in its shadow. Dick, do you know what the Upas stands for?"

"What?"

"Selfishness! It stands for any one who is utterly, preposterously, altogether, selfish."

"Oh, buck up old man!" cried Dick. "We are all selfish—every mother's son of us! Perhaps that's why! Most men's mothers spoil them, and their wives continue the process. But you will be selfish with a vengeance, if you don't buck up and give that splendid wife of yours a good time now. She has been through—such a lot. Ronnie, you will never quite realise—well, I never knew such a woman, excepting, perhaps, Mrs. Dalmain; and of course she has not your wife's beauty. I haven't the smallest intention of ever coming under the yoke myself. But I assure you, old chap, if you had pegged out, as you once or twice seemed likely to do, I should have had a jolly good try as to whether I couldn't chip in, by-and-by."

"Confound you!" said Ronnie. But he laughed, and felt better.

* * * * *

Dr. Dick saw Helen alone.

"Well," he said, "so we've pulled him through. Ronnie's all right now. No more need for watching and planning, and guarding; in fact, the less he realises the precautions which were necessary, the better. I shall take Truscott back to town with me. He seems to have done awfully well. I suppose you have no complaints. Why don't you hire a car and run straight back home with Ronnie this afternoon. Think what a jolly Christmas you might have. Show him the boy as a Christmas present! I believe he is keen to be at home; and the less you thwart him now, the better. Don't suggest it until I am gone; but send a wire home at once to say you are probably returning this afternoon. Then your people will make all needed preparations for the festive day; turkeys and holly, and all that sort of thing; have fires lighted everywhere, and all in readiness. My old sweetheart, Mrs. Blake, will put on cherry-coloured ribbons, and black satin, and be in the hall to receive you! You had better mention, in the wire, that I am not coming; then she won't waste her time hanging mistletoe in likely corners."

Helen wrote the telegram, rang, and gave it to a page.

Then she turned to Dr. Dick.

"Ronnie is not fully himself, yet," she said.

Dick looked at her keenly. "How so?"

"He professes to remember, and does remember, everything which happened, up to the final crash in the studio. Yet he has made no mention to me of—of our child."

"He is shy about it," suggested Dick. "You speak first."

"I cannot," she replied. "It is for Ronald to do that."

"Ah, you dear women!" moralised the young bachelor. "You remind me of Nebuchadnezzar—no, I mean Naaman. You bravely ford the rushing waters of your Abanas and your Pharpars, and then you buck-jump at the little river Jordan!"

"My dear Dick, I am becoming accustomed to the extraordinary inaptness of your scriptural allusions. But this is hardly a small matter between me and Ronnie. I am ready to make every allowance for his illness and loss of memory; but I don't see how I can start life with him at home, until he manages to remember a thing of such vital import in our wedded life. He may be sane on every other point. I cannot consider him sane on this."

"Shall I tell him?" suggested Dick.

"No, let him remember. He can remember his Infant of Prague; his mind is full of that again. Why should he not be able to remember my baby son?"

"Oh, lor!" sighed Dr. Dick. "Why not put that poser to Ronnie direct, instead of putting it to me? Forgive me for saying so, but you are suffering just now from a reaction, after the terrible strain through which you have passed. And Ronnie is wretched too, because he remembers how you let fly at him that evening, and he thinks you really meant it."

"I did," said Helen. "Of course, had I known how ill he was, poor old boy, I should have been more patient. But I have a little son to consider now, as well as Ronnie. I did think him selfish, and I do."

"My dear angel," said Dr. Dick, "we are all selfish, every mother's son of us; and it is you blessed women who make us so."

She looked at him, with softening eyes. "You are not selfish, Dick," she said.

"I am," he answered; "and a long chalk worse than Ronnie. I combine ambition with my selfishness. I jolly well mean to get to the top of the tree, and I don't care how I get there. I down every one who dares stand in my way; or—I use them as stepping-stones. There! Isn't that a worse Upas tree than poor old Ronnie's? Mine is a life untouched by love, or any gentler feelings. All that sort of thing was killed in me when I was quite a little chap. It is the story of a broken halo. Perhaps I'll tell it you some day. Meanwhile, this being Christmas Eve and not Ash Wednesday, I'll make no more confessions. Don't you want to hear the result of my psychic investigations, concerning our mirror experiences?"

"Exceedingly," said Helen. "Have you time to tell me now?"

"Heaps of time. It won't take long. Last night I told the whole story to a man who makes a special study of these matters, and knows more about things psychic than any other man in England. The Brands asked me to dinner and arranged to have him also. After dinner he and I went down alone to the doctor's consulting room, and talked the whole thing out. I was careful to mention no names. You don't want to be credited with a haunted room at the Grange, neither do we want Ronnie's name mixed up with psychical phenomena. Now I will give you this man's opinion and explanation, exactly as he gave it to me. Only, remember, I pass it on as his. I do not necessarily endorse it.

"He holds that inanimate objects, such as beds, walls, cupboards, staircases, have a power of receiving, absorbing and retaining impressions transmitted to them through contact with human minds in extreme conditions of stress and tension. This would especially be the case with intimately personal things, such as musical instruments, or favourite chairs. Old rooms and ancient furniture might retain these impressions for centuries; and, under certain circumstances, transmit them to any mind, with which they came in contact, happening to be strung up to the right key to respond to the psychic impression. He considers that this theory accounts for practically all ghost stories and haunted rooms, passages, and staircases. It reduces all apparitions to the subjective rather than the objective plane; in other words the spirit of a murdered man does not return at certain times to the room in which he was done to death; but his agonised mind, in its last conscious moments, left an impress upon that room which produces a subjective picture of the scene, or part of the scene, upon any mind psychically en rapport with that impress. I confess this idea appeals to me. It accounts for the undoubted fact that certain old rooms are undeniably creepy; also that apparitions, unconnected with actual flesh and blood, have been seen by sane and trustworthy witnesses. It does away with the French word for ghost—revenant. There is no such thing as a 'comer-back,' or an 'earth-bound spirit.' Personally, I do not believe in immortality, in the usually accepted sense of the word; but I have always felt that were there such a thing as a disembodied spirit, it would have something better to do than to walk along old corridors, frightening housemaids! But, to come to the point, concerning our own particular experience.

"I carefully told him every detail. He believes that probably the old Florentine chair and the 'cello had been in conjunction before, and had both played their part in the scene which was re-acted in the mirror. If so, poor old Ron was jolly well in for it, seated in the chair, and holding the 'cello. His already over-excited brain found itself caught between them. The fitful firelight and the large mirror supplied excellent mediums for the visualisation of the subjective picture. Of course, we do not yet know what Ronnie saw. I trust we never shall. It is to be hoped he has forgotten it. Had you and I seen nothing, we should unquestionably have dismissed the whole thing as merely a delirious nightmare of Ronnie's unhinged brain.

"But the undoubted fact remains that we each saw, reflected in that mirror, objects which were not at that moment in the room. In fact we saw the past reflected, rather than the present. My psychic authority considers that both our impressions came to us through Ronnie's mind, and were already fading, owing to the fact that he had become unconscious. I, coming in later than you, merely saw the Florentine chair in position. All else in my view of the reflection appertained to the actual present, into which the long-ago past was then rapidly merging. But you, coming in a few moments sooner, and being far more en rapport with the spirit of the scene, saw the tall man in a red cloak—whom you call the Avenger—strangling the girl. By the way, why do you call him the Avenger?"

"Because," said Helen, slowly, "there was murder in the cruel face of the woman, and there was a dagger in her hand. She had struck her blow before he appeared upon the scene. I know this, because it was the flare of his crimson cloak, as he rushed in, which first caught my eye, in the firelight, and made me look into the mirror at all. Before that I was intent on Ronnie. The Avenger seized the woman from behind; I saw his brown hands on the whiteness of her throat. Grief and horror were on his face, as he looked over her shoulder, and past the chair, at the prostrate heap upon the floor."

"Which heap," said Dick, trying to speak lightly, "was our poor Ronnie."

"No," said Helen, gazing straight before her into the fire, "the heap upon the floor was not Ronnie."

"But—I am positive!—I saw it myself! I saw you kneeling beside it. I helped to sort it, afterwards. The actual heap on the floor was the broken chair, Ronnie mixed up with it; and, on top of both, that unholy Infant, whose precocious receptivity is responsible for the entire business. I exonerate the Florentine chair; I exonerate poor Ronnie. I shall always maintain that that confounded 'cello worked the whole show, out of its own unaided tummy!"

But Helen did not laugh. She did not even smile. "The heap on the floor was not Ronnie," she repeated firmly, "nor was I kneeling beside it. The Italian chair had not fallen over. Not a single thing appertaining to the present, was reflected in the picture as I first saw it. Dick, there was a conclusion to my vision of which I have never told you."

"Oh, lor!" said Dick. "When I guaranteed the psychic chap that I was putting him in full possession of every detail!"

"I am sorry, Dick. But until this moment I have never felt able to tell you. I cannot do so now, unless you are nice."

"I am nice," said Dick, "very nice! Tell me quick."

"Well, as I knelt transfixed, watching—the heap on the floor moved and arose. It was a slight dark man, with a white face, and a mass of tumbled black hair. He lifted from off his breast as he got up, a violoncello. He did not look at the woman, nor at the man in the crimson cloak; he stood staring, as if petrified with grief and dismay, at his 'cello. Following his eyes, I saw a dark jagged stab, piercing its right breast, just above the f hole. The anguish on the 'cellist's face, was terrible to see. Then—oh, Dick, I don't know how to tell you!"

"Go on, Helen," he said, gently.

"Then he turned from the 'cello, and looked at me; and, Dick, it was the soul of Ronnie—my Ronnie—in deepest trouble over his Infant of Prague, which looked at me through those deep sad eyes. I cannot explain to you how I knew it! He was totally unlike my big fair Ronnie, but—it was the soul of Ronnie, in great distress, looking at me! The moment I realised this, I seemed set free from the past. The 'cellist, the woman, the Avenger, all vanished instantly. I saw myself reflected, I saw you, I saw the studio; I saw Ronnie on the floor. I turned to him at once, lifted the 'cello from his breast, and drew his head into my lap."

"Was there a jagged hole—"

"No, not a scratch. The stab belonged to a century ago. But, listen Dick! Several days later, when I had a moment in which to remember Ronnie's poor Infant of Prague, I examined it in a good light, and found the place where the hole made by that dagger had been skilfully mended."

"Lor!" said Dr. Dick. "We're getting on! Don't you think you and I and the Infant might put our heads together, and write a psychic book! But now—seriously. Do you really believe Ronnie was once a slim, pale person, with a shock of black hair? And if he and his Infant lived together in past ages, where were you and I? Are we altogether out of it? Or are you the lady with the dagger, and I the noble party in the flaming cloak?"

She smiled, and a look of quiet peace was in her eyes.

"Dick," she said, "I am not troubled at all about the past. My whole concern is with the present; my earnest looking forward is to the future. And remember, that which set me completely free to think only of the present, was when my Ronnie's soul looked out at me from that strange vision of the past. I cannot say exactly what I believe. But I know my entire responsibility is to the present; my hope and confidence are towards the future. I realise, as I have never realised before, the deep meaning of the words: 'Lord, Thou hast been our Dwelling-place, in all generations.' I am content to leave it at that."

Dick sat silent; sobered, impressed, by a calm confidence of faith, which was new to him.

Then he said: "Good for you, Helen, that you can take it so. Personally, I believe in nothing which I cannot fully explain and understand. 'Faith,' in your sense of the word, has no place in my vocabulary. I was a very small boy when my faith took to itself wings and flew away; and, curiously enough, it was while I was singing lustily, in the village church at Dinglevale: 'As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be; world without end, Amen'!"

"It will come back again," said Helen. "Dick, I know it will come back. Some day you will come to me and you will say: 'It has come back.' The thrusting hand and the prying finger are the fashion nowadays, I know. But the grand old faith which will win out in the end, is the faith which stands with clasped hands, in deepest reverence of belief; and, lifting adoring eyes, is not ashamed to say to the revelation of a Risen Christ: 'My Lord and my God!'"

Dick stirred uneasily in his chair.

"We have got off the subject," he said, "and it's about time we looked up Ronnie. But, first of all: how much of all this do you mean to tell Ronnie?"

"Nothing whatever, if I can help it," replied Helen. "So far as I know, I hope, after this morning, never to mention the subject again."

"I think you are wise. And now let me give you a three-fold bit of advice. Smash the mirror; burn the chair; brain the Infant!"

Helen laughed. "No, no, Dick!" she said. "I can do none of those things. I must take tenderest care of Ronnie's Infant. I have had his valuable old chair carefully mended; and I must not let him think I fear the mirror."

"You're a brave woman," said Dick. "Believing what you do, you're a brave woman to live in the house with that mirror. Or, perhaps, it comes of believing so much. A certainty of confidence, which asks no questions, must be to some extent a fortifying thing. By the way, you will remember that the long rigmarole I gave you was not my own explanation, but the expert's? Mine is considerably simpler and shorter. In fact, it can be summed up in three words."

"What is your explanation, Dick?"

"Whisky and soda," said Dr. Dick, bravely. "You mixed it stiffer than you knew. I was dead beat, and had had no food. I have always been a fairly abstemious chap; in my profession we have to be: woe betide the man who isn't. But since I saw that chair standing on its four legs in the mirror, when it was lying broken on the floor in reality, I have not touched a drop of alcohol. There! I make you a present of that for your next temperance meeting. Now let's go out and buck Ronnie up. Remember, he'll feel jolly flat for a bit, with no temperature. Temperature is a thing you miss, when it has become a habit."



CHAPTER XVII

"HE NEVER KNEW!"

Ronnie saw Dick off by the mid-day train.

After the train had begun to move, Dick leaned from the window, and said suddenly: "Ronnie! talk to your wife about her Leipzig letter, and—the kid, you know."

Ronnie kept pace with the train long enough to say: "I wish you wouldn't call it the 'kid,' Dick; it is the 'Infant.' And Helen declines to talk of it."

Then he dropped behind, and Dick flung himself into a corner of his compartment, with a face of comic despair. "Merciful heavens," he said, "slay that Infant!"

Meanwhile Ronnie was saying to a porter: "When is the next train for town?"

"One fifty-five, sir."

"Then I have no chance now of catching the three o'clock from town, for Hollymead?"

"Not from town, sir. But there is a way, by changing twice, which gets you across country, and you pick up the three o'clock all right at Huntingford, four ten."

"Are you sure, my man? I was told there was no way across country."

"The one fifty-five is the only train in the day by which you can do it, sir. I happen to know, because I have a sister lives at Hollymead, so I've done it m'self. If trains aren't late, you hit off the three o'clock at Huntingford."

"Thanks," said Ronnie, noting down particulars. Then he walked rapidly back to the hotel.

"I can't stand it," he said. "I shall bolt! With me off her hands, she can go and have a jolly Christmas at the Dalmains. She is always welcome there. I must get away alone and think matters out. I know everything is all wrong, and yet I don't exactly know what has come between us. I only know I am wretched, and so is she. It is still the poison of the Upas. If I knew why she suddenly considered me utterly, preposterously, altogether, selfish, I would do my level best to put it right. But I don't."

He found Helen in the hall, anxiously watching the door. She took up a paper, as he came in.

"Helen," he said, "do you mind if we lunch punctually at one o'clock? I am going out before two."

"Why, certainly we will," said Helen. "You must have had a very early breakfast, Ronnie. But don't overdo, darling. Remember what Dick said. Shall I come with you?"

"I would rather go alone," said Ronnie. "I want to think things over."

She rose and stood beside him.

"Ronnie dear, we seem to have lost all count of days. But, as a matter of fact, to-morrow is Christmas Day. Would you like to go home this afternoon? We can order a car for two o'clock, and be at the Grange for tea. Ronnie, wouldn't it be rather lovely? Think of the little cosy tea-table, and your own especial chair, and the soft lamp-light—"

She paused abruptly. The mental picture had recalled to both the evening on which they last stood together in that golden lamplight.

Ronnie hesitated, looking at the floor. Then he raised his eyes to Helen's. "I don't think I could bear it," he said, turned from her quickly, and went upstairs.

In his room he scribbled a note.

"My wife—I am awfully sorry, but I simply had to bolt. Don't be alarmed. I have gone home to the Grange. I believe, when I am by myself in the house where we spent the three years I thought so perfect and so happy, I shall find out what is the matter; I shall get to the very root of the Upas tree.

"I know I somehow hurt you horribly on the night I reached home, by asking you to come to the studio to hear me play my 'cello; but, before God, I haven't the faintest idea why!

"You would not have said what you did, had you known I was ill; but neither would you have said it, unless it had been true. If it was true then, it is true now. If it is true now, we can't spend Christmas Day together.

"I want you to go to the Dalmains by motor, as soon as you find this, and have a jolly, restful time with them. You look worn out.

"RONNIE."

"P.S.—I am obliged to leave this in my room. I hope you will find it there. I don't even know where your room is, Helen, in this beastly hotel."

Ronnie considered his postscript; then crossed out "beastly" and substituted "large." But "beastly" still showed, pathetically, beneath the line. And, by-and-by, the heart of Ronnie's wife, from which all clouds had suddenly rolled away, understood it, and wept over it, and kissed it; and thought "beastly" a dear word! It was so quaintly like Ronnie to substitute "large" for "beastly."

All clouds had rolled away, before Helen read the note; for this is what had happened.

* * * * *

Ronnie had excused himself when lunch was half over.

Helen let him go, trying to act on Dr. Dick's advice not to worry him by seeming to watch or follow him.

So she sat on alone, finishing luncheon, and thus did not see Ronnie walk out of the front door, carrying his bag.

Soon afterwards she passed into the hall, and sat dipping into the papers and thinking over her talk with Dick.

Presently a page stepped up to her with a letter on a salver.

Her heart stood still as she saw the stamp, the post-mark, and the writing. It was from Aubrey Treherne, forwarded from Hollymead.

Helen was sorely tempted for a moment to burn it unread. She had suffered so much through a former letter in that handwriting. She suddenly realised how cruelly Aubrey's words about Ronnie had, in the light of Ronnie's subsequent behaviour, eaten into her soul.

She looked at the fire. She rose and moved towards it, the letter in her hand.

Then better counsels prevailed.

She went slowly upstairs to her sitting-room, closed the door, sat down, and opened Aubrey's letter.

It contained a smaller envelope sealed, on which was written: "Read letter first."

She opened the folded sheets.

"DEAR HELEN,

"Yes, you are right about God's Word not returning void. Your own words, I admit, only hardened me; but those at the end of your letter broke me up. I am so very far removed from light and fellowship, love and forgiveness. I doubt if I can ever get back into the way of peace.

"But, anyhow, before the great Feast of Peace upon earth, goodwill toward men, I can take a first step by fully confessing the great wrong I did to you and to your husband rather more than a month ago, on the evening which he spent at my flat.

"Possibly you have found it out already; but possibly not, as I hear he has been very seriously ill.

"The evening he was here, he was more or less queer and light-headed, but he was full of you, and of his delight in going home. I suppose this all helped to madden me. No need to explain why. You know.

"He had found a letter from you at the Poste Restante; but, rushing around to his publishers, etc., had not had time to read it.

"When he remembered it and found it in his pocket-book, he stood with his back to my stove, in great excitement, and tore it open; I sitting by.

"As he unfolded the large sheets of foreign paper, a note flew out from between them, and fell, unseen by him, to the floor.

"I put my foot on it. I gathered, from extracts he read me from the letter, that this note was of importance.

"When he found in a postscript that you mentioned an enclosure, he hunted everywhere for it; not thinking, of course, to look under my foot.

"He then concluded, on my instigation, that, after all, you had not enclosed any note.

"At the first opportunity I transferred it to my pocket, made an excuse to leave the room, and read it.

"Helen, believe me, had I known beforehand the news that note contained, I don't think I could have been such a fiend.

"But once having done it, I carried it through. I allowed your husband to go home in total ignorance of the birth of his son. It was I who put the word 'astonishing' into his telegram; and, in my letter to you, I led you to suppose I had heard the news from him.

"I don't know exactly what I expected to gain from all this. But, in a condition of mad despair, I seemed playing my very last card; and I played it for all it was worth—which apparently was not much!

"I did plenty of other devilish work that night—chiefly mental suggestion. This is the only really confessable thing.

"The letter your husband never saw, is in the enclosed envelope. He will like to have it now.

"Thus, as you see, the Word has not returned unto you void. It brings you the only reparation I can make.

"AUBREY TREHERNE."

Helen tore open the sealed envelope, and found her little pencil note, the tender outpouring to Ronnie, written three days after her baby's birth.

So Ronnie never saw it—he never knew! He came home without having the remotest idea that she had been through anything unusual in his absence. He had heard no word or hint of the birth of his little son. Yet she had called him utterly, preposterously, altogether, selfish, because he had quite naturally expected her to be as interested as ever in his pursuits and pleasures.

Oh, Ronnie, Ronnie!

* * * * *

She flew to his room, hoping he had not yet gone out.

On the table she found a note addressed to herself.

She tore it open, read it—- then went back into the sitting-room, and pealed the bell.

"Send my maid to me at once, and the hall-porter."

They arrived together.

Helen had just written a long telegram to her housekeeper.

She spoke to the hall-porter first.

"Send off this telegram, please. Then procure the fastest motor-car you can find, to run me over to Hollymead this afternoon. We can be ready to start in half-an-hour's time."

Then she turned to her maid.

"Jeffreys, we go home for Christmas after all. Mr. West has gone on by train. We must pack as promptly as possible, and start in half-an-hour. We may perhaps get home before him. I doubt whether he can catch anything down from town before the five o'clock."

She flew to her room, pressing Ronnie's sad little note to her heart. All the world looked different! Ah, what would it be, now, to tell him of his little son! But she must get home before him. Supposing Ronnie went upstairs alone, and found the baby!



CHAPTER XVIII

THE FACE IN THE MIRROR

Ronnie caught the three o'clock train from town, at Huntingford, as the porter had predicted.

No carriage was at the station, so he had a rather long walk from Hollymead to the Grange.

It was a clear, crisp evening and freezing hard. He could feel the frost crackle under his feet, as he tramped along the country lanes.

When he came in sight of the lodge, it reminded him of an old-fashioned Christmas card; the large iron gates, their grey stone supports covered with moss and lichen and surmounted by queer rampant beasts unknown to zoology, holding in their stone claws oval shields on which were carved the ancient arms of Helen's family; the little ivy-covered house, with gabled roof and lattice-windows, firelight from within, shining golden and ruddy on the slight sprinkling of frosty snow.

As he passed in at the gate he saw the motherly figure of Mrs. Simpkins, a baby on her arm, appear at the window, lifting her hand to draw down the crimson blind. Before the blind shut in the bright interior, Ronnie caught a glimpse of three curly heads round a small Christmas-tree on the kitchen-table. Simpkins, in his shirt-sleeves, was lighting the topmost candle.

Ronnie walked on beneath the chestnuts and beeches, up the long sweep of the park drive, a dark lonely figure.

He was very tired; his heart was heavy and sad.

It had been such a cheery glimpse of home, through the lodge window, before the red blind shut it in. Simpkins was a lucky fellow. Mrs. Simpkins looked so kind and comfortable, with the baby's head nestling against her capacious bosom.

Ronnie turned to look back at the brightly-lighted cottage. The ruddy glow from the blind, fell on the snow. He wondered whether there was a Upas tree in that humble home. Surely not! A Upas tree and a Christmas-tree could hardly find place in the same home. The tree of Light and Love, would displace the tree of subtle poison.

He turned wearily from the distant light and plodded on.

Then he remembered that, in her last letter, Helen had said: "Ronnie, we will have a Christmas-tree this Christmas." Why had Helen said that? He had fully intended to ask her, but had not thought of it from that hour to this.

Possibly it was just a wish to yield to his whim in the matter. Perhaps she was planning to have all the little Simpkins kids up to the house.

Well, if Helen spent Christmas with the Dalmains, she would come in for little Geoff's Christmas-tree, which would certainly be a beauty.

He plodded heavily on. He felt extraordinarily lonely. Would Helen miss him? Hardly. You do not miss a selfish person. He would miss Helen—horribly; but then Helen was not selfish. She was quite the most unselfish person he had ever known.

He went over in his mind all the times when Helen had instantly given up a thing at his wish. Amongst others, he remembered how, on that spring morning so long ago, when he had told her of his new book and of his plan, she had been wanting to tell him something, yet he had allowed her interest to remain untold, when she threw herself heart and soul into his. He began to wonder what it could have been; and whether it would be too late to ask her now.

At last he reached the house, and felt slightly cheered to see lights and fires within. He had almost anticipated darkness.

Mrs. Blake herself opened the door, resplendent in black satin; lavender ribbons in her lace cap.

"La, sir!" she said. "Fancy you walking from the station! You must please to excuse Simpkins being out. He has some Christmasing on at the lodge, for his fam'ly."

"I know," said Ronnie. "I saw a Christmas-tree as I passed. I shall not require Simpkins. Blake, is there a fire in the studio?"

"There is, sir, a fine one, for the good of the piano. There is also a fire in the sitting-room, sir, where I will at once send in some tea."

"No, not there," said Ronnie quickly. "I will have tea in the studio."

But Mrs. Blake was firm. "That I couldn't ever, sir! Mrs. West wouldn't wish it. She thinks so much of you having tea in her sitting-room, and beside her fire; which is much more, so to say, cosy than that great unfurnished room, all looking-glass."

At mention of the mirror Ronnie shivered, and yielded. He had almost forgotten the mirror.

So he sat in his own favourite chair, while Blake stood and poured out his first cup of tea, then left him to the utter loneliness of being in that room without Helen.

It is doubtful whether Ronnie had ever loved his wife so passionately as he loved her while he experienced, for the first time, what it was like to be without her, in the room where they had hitherto always been together.

Everything he touched, everything at which he looked, spoke of Helen; forcing upon him the consciousness of the sweetness of her presence, and the consequent hardness of her absence.

Yet he had brought this hardness on himself. She had said: "Wouldn't it be rather lovely to have tea together?" But he had answered: "I don't think I could bear it." And now he did not know how to bear the fact that she was not with him.

Then he saw the chair against which he had leaned his 'cello, and with a thrill of comfort he remembered the Infant of Prague.

How had it fared all this time, in its canvas bag? Perhaps no one had remembered even to put it back into that.

Having hastily swallowed his tea, lest Blake should arrive at the studio to inquire what had been amiss with it, Ronnie hurried down the corridor, entered the long, low room, and turned on the electric light. As before, a great log fire burned on the hearth; but he needed more light now, than mere fitful fire-gleams. He wanted to examine the Infant.

He looked round the room, and there, on a wide settee under one of the windows, lay a polished rosewood 'cello-case.

Ronnie, springing forward, bent down eagerly. The key was in the lock. He turned it, and lifted the lid.

There lay the Infant, shining and beautiful as ever, in a perfectly-fitting bed, lined with soft white velvet. The whole thing carried out exactly Ronnie's favourite description of his 'cello: "just like the darkest horse-chestnut you ever saw in a bursting bur." The open rosewood case, with its soft white lining, was the bursting bur; and within lay his beautiful Infant!

Helen had done this.

Ronnie's pleasure was largely tinged with pain. Helen, who did not like his 'cello, had done this to please him, yet was not here to see his pleasure.

Ronnie drew forth the bow from its place in the lid, opened a little nest which held the rosin, then tenderly lifted the Infant of Prague and carried it to the light.

At first sight, its shining surface appeared perfect as ever. Then, looking very closely, and knowing exactly where to look, Ronnie saw a place just above the f hole on the right, where a blow had evidently been struck deeply into the 'cello. A strip of wood, four inches long, by one inch wide, had been let in, then varnished so perfectly that the mend—probably the work of a hundred years ago—could only be seen in a good light, and by one who knew exactly where to look.

Ronnie stood with grave face gazing at the Infant.

What did it all mean?

He remembered with the utmost vividness every detail of the scene in the mirror.

Had he thought-read from his 'cello the happenings of a century before? Had it transmitted to his over-wrought brain, the scene in which it had once played so prominent a part?

Had it, before then, in the Leipzig flat, imparted to Aubrey Treherne—unconsciously to himself—an accurate mental picture of its former owner?

Ronnie mused on this, and wondered. Then the desire rose strong within him to hear once more the golden voice of the Infant, even at the risk of calling up again those ghostly phantoms of a vanished past.

He drew the Florentine chair into the centre of the room.

He took his seat on the embossed leather of crimson and gold.

He glanced at his reflection. His face was whiter than it had been five weeks ago, when he returned, deep bronzed, from Africa. His hair, too, was longer than it ought to be; though not so long as the heavy black locks of the 'cellist of that past reflection.

Ronnie's rough tweed suit and shooting boots, were a curious contrast to the satin knee-breeches, silken hose, and diamond shoe-buckles he remembered in his vision; yet his manner of holding the 'cello, assumed without conscious thought, and the positions of his knees and feet, were so precisely those of that quaint old-time figure, that Ronnie never doubted that when he raised the bow and his fingers bit into the strings, the flood of harmony would be the same.

He waited for the strong tremor to seize his wrist.

It did not come.

He sounded the four open strings, slowly, one after the other.

Yes, the tones were very pure, very rich, very clear.

Then he took courage, pressed his fingers into the finger-board, and began to play.

Alas, poor Infant of Prague!

Alas, poor born musician, who preferred doing things he had never learned to do!

The exquisite rise and fall of harmony, came not again.

Bitterly disappointed, Ronnie waited, staring into the mirror.

But a rather weary, very lonely, and exceedingly modern young man stared back at him.

At last he realised that he could no longer play the 'cello by inspiration. So he began very carefully feeling for the notes.

The Infant squeaked occasionally, and wailed a little; but on the whole it behaved very well; and, after half-an-hour's work, having found out the key which enabled him to use chiefly the open strings, Ronnie managed to play right through, very fairly in tune, "O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant!"

This gave him extraordinary pleasure. It seemed such a certainty of possession, to be able to pick out all the notes for himself.

He longed that Helen might be there to hear.

The Infant of Prague grew dearer to him than ever. He was now mastering it himself, independent of the antics of an old person of a century ago, bowing away in the mirror.

He tried again; and this time he sang the words of the first verse, as he played. His really fine baritone blended well with the richness of the silver strings.

The words had occasionally to wait, suspended as it were in mid-air, while he felt about wildly for the note on the 'cello; but, once found, the note was true and good, and likely to lead more or less easily to the next.

A listener, in the corridor outside, pressed her hands to her breast, uncertain whether she felt the more inclined to laugh or to weep.

Ronnie began his verse again.

"O come ... all ye ... faithful ... joyful and tri ... tri ... tri ... um ... phant ... O come, ye, O come ye, to Beth ... Beth ... Beth ... Be—eth—le—hem!"

He paused, exhausted by the effort of drawing Bethlehem complete, out of the complication of the Infant's four vibrating strings.

He paused, and, lifting his eyes, looked into the mirror—and saw therein the face of a woman, watching him from beside the door; a lovely face, all smiles, and tears, and tenderness.

At first he gazed, unable to believe his eyes. But, when her eyes met his, and she knew that he saw her, she moved quickly forward, kneeled down beside him, and—it was the face of his wife, all flooded with glad tenderness, which, resting against his shoulder, looked up into his.

She had spoken no word; yet at the first sight of her Ronnie knew that the cloud which had been between them, was between no longer.

"Helen," he said; "Oh, Helen!"



CHAPTER XIX

UNTO US A CHILD IS BORN

Ronnie laid down his bow, and put his right arm round his wife.

He still held the precious Infant of Prague between his knees, his left hand on the ebony finger-board.

"My darling!" Helen said. "So we shall be at home for Christmas after all. How glad I am!"

He looked at her dumbly, and waited.

He felt like the prodigal, who had planned to suggest as his only possible desert, a place among the hired servants, but was so lifted into realisation of sonship by the father's welcome, that perforce he left that sentence unspoken.

So Ronnie looked at her dumbly, reading the utter love for him in her eyes.

Back came the words of his hymn, replete with fresh meaning.

"O come, all ye faithful, Joyful and triumphant!"

They were such faithful eyes—Helen's; and now they seemed filled with triumphant joy.

"Ronnie," she said, "do you remember how I wrote to you at Leipzig, that this Christmas we would have a Christmas-tree? Did not you wonder, darling, why I said that?"

"Yes," answered Ronnie. "I thought of it this evening when I saw a Christmas-tree at the lodge. I had meant to ask you the night I reached home, but I did not remember then."

"Ah, if you had," she said, "if you only had!"

"Well?" he questioned. "Tell me now."

"Ronnie, do you remember that in that letter I said I had something to tell you, and that I enclosed a note, written some weeks before, telling you this thing?"

"Yes, dear," said Ronnie. "But you forgot to enclose the note. It was not there. I tore the envelope right open; I hunted high and low. Then we concluded you had after all considered it unimportant."

"It was all-important, Ronnie; and it was there."

"It was—where?" asked Ronnie.

"Under Aubrey's foot.... Oh, hush, darling, hush! We must not say hard things of a man who has confessed, and who is bitterly repentant. I can't tell you the whole story now; you shall hear every detail later; but he saw it fall from the letter, as you opened it. He was tempted, first, to cover it with his foot; then, to put it in his pocket; and, after he had read it, he wrote to me implying that you had told him the news it contained; so, when you arrived home, how could I possibly imagine that you did not know it?"

"Did not know what?" asked Ronnie.

She drew a folded paper from her pocket.

"My darling, this will tell you best. It is the note intended to reach you at Leipzig; it is the note which, until this afternoon, I had all along believed you to have received."

She put her note into his hand.

"I hope you will be able to read it by this light, Ronnie. I was very weak when I wrote it. I could only use pencil."

Ronnie unfolded it gravely.

She knelt, with bowed head, beside him. She dared not watch his face.

She heard his breath come short and fast. He moved his knees, and let go his 'cello.

The Infant of Prague slipped unnoticed to the floor.

When he read of the birth of his little son, with a hard choking sob, Ronnie turned and gathered her to him, holding her close, yet eagerly reading the letter over her head; reading it, to its very last word.

Then, dropping the letter, he clasped her to him, with a strength and a depth of tenderness such as she had never before known in Ronnie. And his first words were not what Helen had expected.

"Helen," he said, with another desperate tearless sob, "oh, to think that you had to go through that—alone!"

"My darling boy," she answered, "don't worry about that! It is all over, now; and it is so true—oh, so true, Ronnie—that the anguish is no more remembered in the greatness of the joy."

"But I can't forget," said Ronnie—"I shall never forget—that my wife bore the suffering, the danger, the weakness, and I was not there to share it. I did not even know what she was going through."

"Ronnie dear—think of your little son."

"I can think of nothing of mine just yet," he answered, "excepting of my wife."

She gave in to his mood, and waited; letting him hold her close in perfect silence.

It was strangely sweet to Helen, because it was so completely unexpected. She had been prepared for a moment of intense surprise, followed by a rapture of pride and delight; then a wild rush to the nursery to see his first-born. She was quite willing, now her part was over, that her part should be forgotten. It was as unexpected as it was comfortingly precious, that Ronnie should be thus stricken by the thought of her pain, and of her need of him to help her bear it.

At last he said: "Helen, I see it all now. It was the Upas tree indeed: utterly, preposterously, altogether, selfish!"

"My darling, no!" she cried. "Oh, don't be so unjust to yourself! When I used those terrible words, I thought you had had my letter, had come home knowing it all, yet absorbed completely in other things. Misled by Aubrey, I cruelly misjudged you, Ronnie. It was not selfish to go; it was not selfish to be away. You did not know, or you would not have gone. I was glad you should not know, glad you should be away, so that I could bear it alone, without hindering your work; letting you find the joy when you reached home, without having had any of the hardness or the worry. I wished it to be so, my darling boy—and I was glad."

Then Ronnie gently put his wife out of his arms, and took her sweet face between his hands, looking long into her eyes, before he made reply. And Helen, steadfastly returning his gaze, saw a look growing in her husband's face, such as she had never yet seen there, and knew, even before he began to speak, what he was going to say; and her protective love, longing as ever to shield him from pain, cried out: "Oh, must I let him realise that?"

But, at last, through the guidance of wiser Hands than hers, the matter had passed beyond Helen's control.

"My wife," said Ronnie slowly, "when I called it 'the Upas tree indeed,' I did not mean the one act of going off in ignorance and leaving you alone during the whole of that time, when any man who cared at all would wish to be at hand, to bear, and share, and guard. I do not brand that as selfish; because you purposely withheld from me the truth, and bid me go. But why did you withhold it? Why, after the first shock, did you feel glad to face the prospect of bearing it alone; glad I should be away? Ah, here we find the very roots of the Upas tree! Was it not because, during the whole of our married life, I have been cheerfully, complacently selfish? I have calmly accepted as the rule of the home, that I should hear of no worries which you could keep from me, tread upon no thorns which you could clear out of my path, bear no burdens which your loving hands could lift and carry out of sight. Your interests, your pleasures, your friends, your pursuits, all have been swept on one side, if they seemed in the smallest degree likely to interfere with my work, my desires, my career. You have lived for me—absolutely. I have lived for myself. True, we have loved each other tenderly; we have been immensely happy. But, all the while, the shadow of the Upas tree was there. My very love was selfish! It was sheer joy to love you, because you are so sweetly, so altogether, lovable. But when did I—because of my love for you—do one single thing at any cost to self? I was utterly, preposterously, altogether, selfish! You knew this. You knew I hated pain, or worry, or anything which put my comfortable life out of gear. So you gladly let me go, leaving you to bear it all alone. You knew that, had you told me, I should have given up my book and stayed with you; because my self-love would have been more wounded by going than by staying. But you also knew that during all those months you would have had to listen while I bemoaned the circumstances, and bewailed my plot. You knew the bloom would be taken off the coming joy, so you preferred to let me go. Oh, Helen, is not this true?"

She bent her head and kissed his hand. She was weeping silently. She could not say it was not true.

"It was the Upas tree indeed," said Ronnie.

"Darling," she whispered, "it was my fault too—"

"Hush," he said. "There are faults too noble to be accounted faults. But—if you think you were at all to blame—you must atone, by truly and faithfully helping in my fight to root up the Upas tree."

"Ronnie," she said, "a pair of baby hands will help us both. We must learn to live life at its highest, for the sake of our little son."

Then, knowing he had endured as much heart-searching as a man could bear and be the better for it, she said, smiling:

"Ronnie, his funny little hands are so absurdly like yours."

"Like mine?" repeated Ronnie, as one awaking slowly from a sad dream, to a blissful reality. "Why are they like mine?"

"Because he is a tiny miniature of you, you dear, silly old boy! You do not seem to understand that you are actually a father, Ronnie, with a little son of your own!"

She looked up into his worn face, and saw the young glad joy of life creep slowly back into it.

"And his mouth, darling—his little mouth is just like yours; only, as I told you in the letter, when I kiss it—it does not kiss back, Ronnie."

"What?" cried Ronnie. "What?" Then he understood; and, this time, it was no mirage. Ronnie's desert wanderings were over.

* * * * *

"But don't you want to see your son?" Helen asked, presently.

Ronnie leapt up.

"See him? Why, of course I do! Oh, come on!... Helen! What does one say to a very young baby?"

Helen followed him upstairs, laughing.

"That entirely depends upon circumstances. One usually says: 'Did it?' 'Is it then?' or 'Was it?' But I almost think present conditions require a more definite statement of fact. I fancy one would say: 'How do you do, baby? I am your papa!' ... This way, Ronnie, in my own old nurseries. Oh, darling, I am afraid I am going to cry! But you must not mind. They will only be tears of unutterable joy. Think what it will be to me, to see my baby in his father's arms!"



CHAPTER XX

GOOD-NIGHT TO THE INFANT OF PRAGUE

The last hour of Christmas Eve ticked slowly to its close.

On all around grew that sense of the herald angels, bending over a waiting world, poised upon outstretched wings. The hush had fallen which carries the mind away to the purple hills of Bethlehem, the watching shepherds, the quiet folds, the sudden glory in the sky.

The old Grange was closing its eyes at last, and settling itself to slumber.

One by one the brightly lighted windows darkened; the few remaining lights moved upwards.

The Hollymead Waits had duly arrived, and played their annual Christmas hymns. They had won gold from Ronnie, by ministering to his new-found proud delight in his infant son. The village blacksmith, who played the cornet and also acted spokesman for the band, had closed the selections of angelic music, by exclaiming hoarsely, under cover of the night: "A merry Christmas and a 'appy New Year, to Mrs. West, to Mr. West, and to Master West!"

Ronnie dashed out jubilant. The Waits departed well-content.

Helen said: "You dear old silly!"

"Master West," wakened by the cornet, also had something to say; but he confided his remarks to his nurse, and was soon hushed back to slumber.

* * * * *

In the studio, the fire burned low.

The reflections in the long mirror, were indefinite and dim.

The Infant of Prague lay forgotten on the floor.

* * * * *

As midnight drew very near, the door of the studio was pushed softly open, and Helen came in, wearing a soft white wrapper; a lighted candle in her hand.

She placed the candle on a table; then, stooping, carefully lifted Ronnie's 'cello from the floor, laid it in its rosewood case, and stood looking down upon it. Then, smiling, touched its silver strings, with loving fingers.

"Poor Infant of Prague!" she said. "Has Ronnie forgotten even to put you to bed? Never mind! To-morrow you and he shall sing Christmas hymns together, while I and his little son listen and admire."

She closed the case. Then some impulse made her open it again. Her sweet eyes filled with tears. No one was there to see. Ronnie's wife knelt down and gently kissed the unconscious, shining face of the Infant of Prague.

* * * * *

Turning from the settee beneath the window, she saw herself reflected in the mirror—a tall fair figure in trailing garments, soft and white.

She held the candle high above her head, looked at her own reflection, and smiled.

She was glad she was so lovely—for Ronnie's sake.

Ronnie's love to-night was very wonderful.

She moved towards the door, but paused in passing, to look into the smouldering embers of the fire.

At that moment the clocks struck midnight. She heard the Westminster chimes, up on the landing.

It was Christmas Day.

"Unto us a Child is born; unto us a Son is given," murmured Helen. "Oh, holy Christ of Christmas, may the new life to come be very perfect for my Ronnie, my baby, and me."

* * * * *

"Helen!" came Ronnie's eager happy voice, shouting over the stairs. "I say, Helen! Where are you?"

"Coming, darling!" she called, passing out of the studio, and moving swiftly down the corridor.

Ronnie, on the landing, was leaning over the banisters, an expression of comic dismay on his face.

"Oh, I say!" he whispered. "I've done it now! I believe I've woke the baby!"

Helen, mounting the stairs, paused to look up at him, love and laughter in her eyes.

"Undoubtedly you have, you naughty boy! No shouting allowed here now, after dark. But what do you think I was doing? Why, I was in the studio, putting to bed the Infant of Prague."



THE END.



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