Chapter 8 PARADISE LOST

Aubrey Treherne sat at his writing-table, his head buried in his hands.

Before him lay the closely-written sheets of his letter to Helen; beside them her pencil note which had fallen, unnoticed by Ronnie, from her letter to him.

Presently Aubrey lifted his head. His face bore traces of the anguish of soul through which he had been passing.

A man who has yielded himself to unrestrained wrong-doing, suffers with a sharpness of cold misery unknown to the brave true heart, however hard or lonely may be his honourable way.

Before finally reading his own letter to Helen, Aubrey read again her pathetic note to her husband.

"Ronnie, my own!

"Excuse pencil and bad writing. Nurse has propped me up in bed, but not so high as I should like.

"Darling, I am not ill, only rather weak, and very, very happy.

"Ronnie, I must write to you on this first day of being allowed a pencil, though I shall not, of course, yet send the letter. In fact, I daresay I shall keep it, and give it to you by-and-by. But you will like to feel that I wrote at once.

"Darling, how shall I tell you? Beside me, in your empty place, as I write, lies your little son-our own baby-boy, Ronnie!

"He came three days ago.

"Oh, Ronnie, it is so wonderful! He is so like you; though his tiny fingers are all pink and crinkled, and his palms are like little sea-shells. But he is going to have your artistic hands. When I cuddle them against my neck, 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 has spent the evening talking of nothing but himself, his journey, his wonderful book-the strongest thing he has done yet, etc., etc., etc.; till I could have risen up and strangled him with my two hands. Oh, Helen-my lovely one-he is altogether unworthy of you! I saw a letter of yours long ago, in which you said he was like a young sun-god. Handsome he is, I admit. He says he has never felt fitter in his life, and he looks it. But surely a woman wants more than mere vitality and vigour and outward beauty of appearance? Heart-he has none. The wonderful news in your letter has left him unmoved. He thinks more of a 'cello he has just bought than he does of your little son. When I remonstrated with him, he rose up and struck me on the mouth. But I forgave him for your sake, and he now sleeps under my roof.

"Helen, he must have disappointed you over and over again. He will continue to disappoint you.

"Helen, you loved me once; and when a woman loves once, she loves for always.

"Helen, if he could leave you alone during seven months, in order to get local scenery for a wretched manuscript, he will leave you again, and again, and yet again. He married you for your money; he has practically admitted it to me; but now that he is making a yearly income larger than your own, he has no more use for you.

"Oh, my beloved-my queen-my only Love-don't stay with a man who is altogether unworthy of you! If a man disappoints a woman she has a right to leave him. He is not what she believed him to be; that fact sets her free. If you had found out, afterwards, that he was already married to another, would you not have left him? Well, he was already wedded to himself and to his career. He had no whole-hearted devotion to give to you.

"Helen, don't wait for his return. Directly you get this come out here to me. Bring your little son and his nurse. My flat will be absolutely at your disposal. I can sleep elsewhere; and I swear to you I will never stay one moment after you have bid me go. As soon as West has set you legally free, we can marry and travel abroad for a couple of years; then, when the whole thing has blown over, go back to live in the old house so dear to us both.

"Helen, you will have twenty-four hours in which to get away before he returns. But even if you decide to await his return, it will not be too late. His utter self-absorption must give you a final disillusion.

"See if his first words to you are not about his cursèd 'cello, rather than about his child and yours.

"If so, treat him with the silent contempt he deserves, and come at once to the man who won you first and to whom you have always belonged; come, where tenderest consideration and the worship of a lifetime await you.

"Yours till death-- and after,

"AUBREY TREHERNE."

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