a cocoa-nut stood on the grass near the doorway.
He had last seen it in her hands, and he took it up and held it for a
moment, pressing it tightly to his breast. Then he threw himself down
before the doorway, and lay upon his face, with head resting upon his
arms in the attitude of a person who is profoundly asleep.

He must have searched through the woods again that night just as a
somnambulist searches, for he found himself towards dawn in the valley
before the idol. Then it was daybreak--the world was full of light and
colour. He was seated before the house door, worn out and exhausted,
when, raising his head, he saw Emmeline's figure coming out from amidst
the distant trees on the other side of the sward.

CHAPTER XIII

THE NEWCOMER

He could not move for a moment, then he sprang to his feet and ran
towards her. She looked pale and dazed, and she held something in her
arms; something wrapped up in her scarf. As he pressed her to him, the
something in the bundle struggled against his breast and emitted a
squall--just like the squall of a cat. He drew back, and Emmeline,
tenderly moving her scarf a bit aside, exposed a wee face. It was
brick-red and wrinkled; there were two bright eyes, and a tuft of dark
hair over the forehead. Then the eyes closed, the face screwed itself
up, and the thing sneezed twice.

"Where did you GET it?" he asked, absolutely lost in astonishment as
she covered the face again gently with the scarf.

"I found it in the woods," replied Emmeline.

Dumb with amazement, he helped her along to the house, and she sat
down, resting her head against the bamboos of the wall.

"I felt so bad," she explained; "and then I went off to sit in the
woods, and then I remembered nothing more, and when I woke up it was
there."

"It's a baby!" said Dick.

"I know," replied Emmeline.

Mrs James's baby, seen in the long ago, had risen up before their
mind's eyes, a messenger from the past to explain what the new thing
was. Then she told him things--things that completely shattered the old
"cabbage bed" theory, supplanting it with a truth far more wonderful,
far more poetical, too, to he who can appreciate the marvel and the
mystery of life.

"It has something funny tied on to it," she went on, as if she were
referring to a parcel she had just received.

"Let's look," said Dick.

"No," she replied; "leave it alone."

She sat rocking the thing gently, seeming oblivious to the whole world,