“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.