So Frank went down into the darkening room below, and mechanically lighting his pipe, he sat with his elbows upon his knees and stared out into the gathering gloom where one bright evening star twinkled in a violet sky.  The gentle hush of the gloaming was around him, and some late bird was calling outside amongst the laurels.  Above he heard the shuffling of feet, the murmur of voices, and then amid it all those thin glutinous cries, his voice, the voice of this new man with all a man’s possibilities for good and for evil, who had taken up his dwelling with them.  And as he listened to those cries, a gentle sadness was mixed with his joy, for he felt that things were now for ever changed—­that whatever sweet harmonies of life might still be awaiting him, from this hour onwards, they might form themselves into the subtlest and loveliest of chords, but it must always be as a trio, and never as the dear duet of the past.

CHAPTER XXII—­THE TRIO

(Extract from a letter to the Author from Mrs. Frank Crosse.)

’It is very singular that you should say with such confidence that you know that our baby is a splendid one, and further on you say that in some ways it differs from any other baby.  It is so true, but neither Frank nor I can imagine how you knew.  We both think it so clever of you to have found it out.  When you write to us, do please tell us how you discovered it.

’I want to tell you something about baby, since you so kindly ask me, but Frank says there is no use my beginning as there is only one quire of paper in the house.  As a matter of fact, I shall be quite short, which is not because I have not plenty to say—­you cannot think what a dear he is—­but because he may wake up at any moment.  After that happens I can only write with one hand, while I wave a feather fan with the other, and it is so difficult then to say exactly what you mean.  In any case you know that I have not the habit of collecting and writing down my ideas, so please forgive me if this seems a stupid letter.  Frank could have done it splendidly.  But he has so many sweet and quite remarkable ways, that I ought to be able to put some of them down for you.

’It will be easier perhaps if I imagine a day of him—­and one of his days is very much like another.  No one could ever say that he was irregular in his habits.  First thing in the morning I go over to his cot to see if he is awake yet—­though, of course, I know that he can’t be, for he always lets us know—­the darling!  However, I go over all the same, and I find everything quiet and nothing visible of baby, but a tiny, turned-up nose.  It is so exactly Frank’s nose, only that his is curved the other way.  Then, as I bend over his cot, there is a small sigh, such a soft, comfortable sound!  Then a sort of earthquake takes place under the eider down, and a tightly clenched