, the awful longing and loneliness of these past
months seem wiped out. But only because he is yours, darling, and
because I know you are soon coming back to him and to me.

"I could not tell you before you went, because I know you would have
felt obliged to give up going, and your book is so important; and I have
not told you since, because you must not have anything to worry you
while so far away. Also I was glad to bear it alone, and to save you the
hard part. One soon forgets the hardness, in the joy.

"Jane was with me.

"We are sending no announcement to the papers, for fear you should see
it on the way home. Very few people know.

"Our little son will be six weeks old, when you get back. I shall be
quite strong again.

"I hope you will be able to read this tiny writing. Nurse would only
give me one sheet of paper!

"His eyes are blue. His little mouth is just like yours. I kiss it, but
it doesn't kiss back! He is a darling, Ronnie, but--he isn't you!

"Come back soon, to your more than ever loving wife,

"HELEN.

"Yes, the smudgy places _are_ tears, but only because I am rather weak,
and so happy."

Crossing the first page came a short postscript, in firmer hand-writing:

"After all I am sending this to Leipzig. I daren't not tell you before
you arrive. I sometimes feel as if I had done something wrong! Tell me,
directly you take me in your arms, that I did right, and that you are
glad. I am down, as usual, now, and baby is quite well."

Aubrey's hands shook as he folded the thin paper, opened a drawer,
pushed the letter far into it, and locked the drawer.

Then, with set face, he turned to his own letter to Ronald West's wife.

"My own Beloved--

"Yes, I call you so still, because you _were_ mine, and _are_ mine. You
threw me over, giving me no chance to prove that my love for you had
made me worthy--that I would have been worthy. You sent me into outer
darkness, where there was wailing and gnashing of teeth; where the worm
of remorse dies--never. But, through it all, I loved you still. I love
you to-night, as I never loved you before. The whole world is nothing to
me, excepting as the place on which you walk.

"I have seen the man--- the selfish, self-absorbed fool--on whom you
threw yourself away, six months after you had cast me adrift. At this
moment he is my guest, snoring in an adjoining room while I sit up
writing to you.

"He