of need."

* * * * *

"No," said Dick, after a while, gazing straight before him into the
fire, his chin in his hands; "I can't believe Ronnie knew it. He was
just in the condition to become frantically excited by such news. He
would have been desperately anxious about you; wild that you should
have gone through it alone, and altogether absorbed in the idea of
coming home and seeing his child. The Infant of Prague would have had
its shining nose put completely out of joint. I don't believe Ronnie
ever had your letter. Write to the _Poste Restante_ at Leipzig, and you
will receive it back."

"Impossible," said Helen. "He opened and read it that evening in
Aubrey's flat. He told Aubrey the news, and Aubrey mentioned it in his
letter to me."

Dick looked grave.

"Well then," he said, "old Ronnie is in an even worse case than I
feared. I think we should go at once and look him up. I told my friend's
chauffeur to wait; so, if further advice is needed to-night, we can send
the car straight back to town with a message. Where is Ronnie?"

"He took his 'cello, and went off to the studio. I heard him shut the
door."

"Show me the way," said Dr. Dick.

With his hand on the handle of the sitting-room door, he paused.

"I suppose you--er--feel quite able to forgive poor old Ronnie, now?" he
asked.

The yearning anguish in Helen's eyes made answer enough.

They crossed the hall together; but--as they passed down the corridor
leading to the studio--they stopped simultaneously, and their eyes
sought one another in silent surprise and uncertainty.

The deep full tones of a 'cello, reached them where they stood; tones so
rich, so plaintively sweet, so full of passion and melody, that, to the
anxious listeners in the dimly lighted corridor, they gave the sense of
something weird, something altogether uncanny in its power, unearthly in
its beauty.

They each spoke at the same moment.

"It cannot be Ronnie," they said.

"It must be Ronnie," amended Helen. "There is no one else in the house."

"_You_ go in," whispered Dick. "I will wait here. Call, if you want me.
Don't startle him. Go in very softly. Be very--er--_you_ know?"

Helen moved forward alone.

She laid her hand upon the handle of the studio door.

She wished the weird music within would cease for one moment, that she
might feel more able to enter.

Cold shivers ran down her spine.

Try as she would, she could not connect