Hesba Stretton - The Ultimate Christmas Library - 100+ Authors, 200 Novels, Novellas, Stories, Poems and Carols

Then he saw the chair against which he had leaned his 'cello, and with a thrill of comfort he remembered the Infant of Prague.

How had it fared all this time, in its canvas bag? Perhaps no one had remembered even to put it back into that.

Having hastily swallowed his tea, lest Blake should arrive at the studio to inquire what had been amiss with it, Ronnie hurried down the corridor, entered the long, low room, and turned on the electric light. As before, a great log fire burned on the hearth; but he needed more light now, than mere fitful fire-gleams. He wanted to examine the Infant.

He looked round the room, and there, on a wide settee under one of the windows, lay a polished rosewood 'cello-case.

Ronnie, springing forward, bent down eagerly. The key was in the lock. He turned it, and lifted the lid.

There lay the Infant, shining and beautiful as ever, in a perfectly-fitting bed, lined with soft white velvet. The whole thing carried out exactly Ronnie's favourite description of his 'cello: "just like the darkest horse-chestnut you ever saw in a bursting bur." The open rosewood case, with its soft white lining, was the bursting bur; and within lay his beautiful Infant!

Helen had done this.

Ronnie's pleasure was largely tinged with pain. Helen, who did not like his 'cello, had done this to please him, yet was not here to see his pleasure.

Ronnie drew forth the bow from its place in the lid, opened a little nest which held the rosin, then tenderly lifted the Infant of Prague and carried it to the light.

At first sight, its shining surface appeared perfect as ever. Then, looking very closely, and knowing exactly where to look, Ronnie saw a place just above the f hole on the right, where a blow had evidently been struck deeply into the 'cello. A strip of wood, four inches long, by one inch wide, had been let in, then varnished so perfectly that the mend—probably the work of a hundred years ago—could only be seen in a good light, and by one who knew exactly where to look .

Ronnie stood with grave face gazing at the Infant.

What did it all mean?

He remembered with the utmost vividness every detail of the scene in the mirror.

Had he thought-read from his 'cello the happenings of a century before? Had it transmitted to his over-wrought brain, the scene in which it had once played so prominent a part?

Had it, before then, in the Leipzig flat, imparted to Aubrey Treherne—unconsciously to himself—an accurate mental picture of its former owner?

Ronnie mused on this, and wondered. Then the desire rose strong within him to hear once more the golden voice of the Infant, even at the risk of calling up again those ghostly phantoms of a vanished past.

He drew the Florentine chair into the centre of the room.

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