very, very good!"

He laughed up at her, but Helen's face was grave. Then a sudden thought brightened it.

"If you really go to Leipzig, Ronnie, could you look in at Zimmermann's—a first-rate place for musical instruments of all kinds—and choose me a small organ for the new church? I saw a little beauty the other day at Huntingford; a perfect tone, twelve stops, and quite easy to play. They had had it sent over from Leipzig. It cost only twenty-four pounds. In England, one could hardly have bought so good an instrument for less than forty. If you could choose one with a really sweet tone, and have it shipped over here, I should be grateful."

"With pleasure, darling. I enjoy trying all sorts of instruments. But why economise over the organ? If my wife fancied a hundred guinea organ, I could give it her."

"No, you couldn't, Ronnie. You must not be extravagant."

"I am not extravagant, dear. Buying things one can afford is not extravagance."

"Sometimes it is. Extravagance is not spending money. But it is paying a higher price for a thing than the actual need demands, or than the circumstances justify. I considered you extravagant last winter when you paid five guineas for a box at Olympia, intended to hold eight people, and sat in it, in solitary grandeur, alone with your wife."

"I know you did," said Ronnie. "You left me no possible loop-hole for doubt in the matter. But your quite mistaken view, on that occasion, arose from an incorrect estimate of values. I paid one pound, six shillings and three-pence for the two seats, and three pounds, eighteen and nine-pence for the pleasure of sitting alone with my wife, and thought it cheap at that. It was a far lower price than the actual need demanded; therefore, by your own showing, it was not extravagant."

"Oh, what a boy it is!" sighed Helen, with a little gesture of despair. "Then, last Christmas, Ronnie, you insisted upon fêting the old people with all kinds of unnecessary luxuries. They had always been quite content with wholesome bread-and-butter, plum cake, and nice hot tea. They did not require pâté de foie gras and champagne, nor did they understand or really enjoy them. One old lady, in considerable distress, confided to me the fact that the champagne tasted to her 'like physic with a fizzle in it.' It made most of them ill, Ronnie, and cost at least eight times as much as my simple Christmas parties of other years. So don't go and spend an unnecessary sum on an elaborate, and probably less useful, instrument. I will write you full particulars when the time comes. Oh, Ronnie, you will be so nearly home, by then! How shall I wait?"

"I shall love to feel I have something to do for you in Leipzig," said Ronnie; "and I enjoy poking about among crowds of queer instruments. I should like to have played in Nebuchadnezzar's band. I should have played the sackbut, because I haven't the faintest notion how you work the thing—whether you blow into it, or pull it in and out, or tread upon it; nor what manner of surprising sound it emits, when you do any or all of these things. I love springing surprises on myself and on other people; and I know I do best the things which, if I considered the matter beforehand, I shouldn't have the veriest ghost of a notion how to set about doing. That, darling, is inspiration! I should have played the sackbut by inspiration; whereupon Nebuchadnezzar would instantly have had me cast into the burning fiery furnace."

"Oh, Ronnie, I wish I could laugh! But to-morrow is so near. What shall I do when there is nobody here to tell me silly stories?"

"Ask Mademoiselle Victorine to try her hand at it. Say: 'Chère Mademoiselle, s'il-vous-plait, racontez-moi une extrêmement sotte histoire.'"

"Ronnie, do stop chaffing! Go and play me something really beautiful, and sing very softly, as you did the other night; so that I can hear the tones of the piano and your voice vibrating together."

"No," said Ronnie, "I can't. I have a cast-iron lump in my throat just now, and not a note could pass it. Besides, I don't really play the piano."

He stretched out his foot, and kicked a log into the fire.

The flame shot up, illumining the room. The log-fire, and the two seated near it, were reflected fitfully in the distant mirror.

"Helen, there is one instrument, above all others, which I have always longed to play; yet I have never even held one in my hand."

"What instrument is that, darling?"

"The violoncello," said Ronnie, sitting up and turning towards her as he spoke. "When I think of a 'cello I seem as if I know exactly how it would feel to hold it between my knees, press my fingers up and down the yielding strings, and draw the bow across them. Helen—if I had a 'cello here to-night, you would listen to sounds of such exquisite throbbing beauty, that you would forget everything in this world, my wife, excepting that I love you."

His eyes shone in the firelight. An older look of deeper strength and of fuller manly vigour came into his face. The glow of love transfigured it.

With an uncontrollable sob, Helen stooped and laid her lips on his.

The clock struck midnight.

"Oh, Ronnie," she said; "oh, Ronnie! It is to-day, now! No longer to-morrow—but to-day!"

He sprang to his feet, took her hand, and drew her to the door.

"Come, Helen," he said.

Part II

CHAPTER V

THE INFANT OF PRAGUE

Two men, in a flat at Leipzig, sat on either side of a tall porcelain stove.

The small door in the stove stood open, letting a ruddy glow shine from within, a poor substitute for the open fires blazing merrily in England on this chill November evening; yet giving visible evidence of the heat contained within those cool-looking blue and white embossed tiles.

The room itself was a curious mixture of the taste of the Leipzig landlady, who owned and had furnished it, and of the Englishman studying music, who was its temporary tenant.

The high-backed sofa, upholstered in red velvet, stood stiffly against the wall, awaiting the "guest of honour," who never arrived. It served, however, as a resting-place for a violin, and a pile of music; while, on the opposite side of the room, partly eclipsing a fancy picture of Goethe, stood a chamber organ, open, and displaying a long row of varied stops.

Books and music were piled upon every available flat space, saving the table; upon which lay the remains of supper.

Of the three easy chairs placed in a semi-circle near the stove, two were occupied; but against the empty chair in the centre, its dark brown polished surface reflecting the glow of the fire, leaned a beautiful old violoncello. The metal point of its foot made a slight dent in the parquet floor.

The younger of the two men sat well forward, elbows on knees, eyes alight with excitement, intently gazing at the 'cello.

The other lay back in his chair, his thin sensitive fingers carefully placed tip to tip, his deep-set eyes scrutinising his companion. When he spoke his voice was calm and deliberate, his manner exceedingly quiet. His method of conversation was of the kind which drew out the full confidence of others, while at the same time carefully insinuating, rather than frankly expressing, ideas of his own.

"What a rum fellow you must be, West, to pay a hundred and fifty pounds for an instrument you have no notion of playing. Is it destined to be kept under lock and key in a glass case?"

"Certainly not," said Ronald West. "I shall be able to play it when I try; and I shall try as soon as I get home."

"Give us a sample here."

"No, not here. I particularly wish to