t, 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