I could only use pencil." Ronnie unfolded it gravely.
She knelt, with bowed head, beside him.

She dared not watch his face.
She heard his breath come short and fast.

He moved his knees, and let go his 'cello.
The Infant of Prague slipped unnoticed to the floor.
When he read of the birth of his little son, with a hard choking sob, Ronnie turned and gathered her to him, holding her close, yet eagerly reading the letter over her head; reading it, to its very last word.
Then, dropping the letter, he clasped her to him, with a strength and a depth of tenderness such as she had never before known in Ronnie.

And his first words were not what Helen had expected.
"Helen," he said, with another desperate tearless sob, "oh, to think that you had to go through _that_--alone!" "My darling boy," she answered, "don't worry about that! It is all over, now; and it is so true--oh, _so_ true, Ronnie--that the anguish is no more remembered in the greatness of the joy." "But I can't forget," said Ronnie--"I shall never forget--that my wife bore the suffering, the danger, the weakness, and I was not there to share it.

I did not even know what she was going through." "Ronnie dear--think of your little son." "I can think of nothing of mine just yet," he answered, "excepting of my wife." She gave in to his mood, and waited; letting him hold her close in perfect silence.
It was strangely sweet to Helen, because it was so completely unexpected.