_We really are getting to the story now, are we not?_
~Author.~ _That was all local colour. I want to make it quite clear that it was Christmas._
~Editor.~ _Yes, yes, quite so. This is certainly a Christmas story. I think I shall like Robert, do you know?_)
It was Christmas day, so much at least was clear to him. With that same cynical smile on his lips, he pulled his shivering rags about him, and half unconsciously felt at the growth of beard about his chin. Nobody would recognise him now. His friends (as he had thought them) would pass by without a glance for the poor outcast near them. The women that he had known would draw their skirts away from him in horror. Even Lady Alice----
Lady Alice! The cause of it all!
His thoughts flew back to that last scene, but twenty-four hours ago, when they had parted for ever. As he had entered the hall he had half wondered to himself if there could be anybody in the world that day happier than himself. Tall, well-connected, a vice-president of the Tariff Reform League, and engaged to the sweetest girl in England, he had been the envy of all. Little did he think that that very night he was to receive his _cong!_
What mattered it now how or why they had quarrelled? A few hasty words, a bitter taunt, tears, and then the end.
A last cry from her, "Go, and let me never see your face again!"
A last sneer from him, "I will go, but first give me back the presents I have promised you!"
Then a slammed door and--silence.
What use, without her guidance, to try to keep straight any more? Bereft of her love, Robert had sunk steadily. Gambling, drink, morphia, billiards, and cigars--he had taken to them all; until now in the wretched figure of the outcast on the Embankment you would never have recognised the once spruce figure of Handsome Hardrow.
(~Editor.~ _It all seems to have happened rather rapidly, does it not? Twenty-four hours ago he had been_----
~Author.~ _You forget that this is a_ ~SHORT~ _story._)
Handsome Hardrow! How absurd it sounded now! He had let his beard grow, his clothes were in rags, a scar over one eye testified----
(~Editor.~ _Yes, yes. Of course, I quite admit that a man might go to the bad in twenty-four hours, but would his beard grow as---- _
~Author.~ _Look here, you've heard of a man going grey with trouble in a single night, haven't you?_
~Editor.~ Certainly.
~Author.~ _Well, it's the same idea as that._
~Editor.~ _Ah, quite so, quite so._
~Author.~ _Where was I?_
~Editor.~ _A scar over one eye was just testifying---- I suppose he had two eyes in the ordinary way?_)
--testified to a drunken frolic of an hour or two ago. Never before, thought the policeman, as he passed upon his beat, had such a pitiful figure cowered upon the Embankment, and prayed for the night to cover him.
The----
He was----
Er--the----
(~Editor.~ _Yes?_
~Author.~ _To tell the truth, I am rather stuck for the moment._
~Editor.~ _What is the trouble?_
~Author.~ _I don't quite know what to do with Robert for ten hours or so._
~Editor.~ _Couldn't he go somewhere by a local line?_
~Author.~ _This is not a humorous story. The point is that I want him to be outside a certain house some twenty miles from town at eight o'clock that evening._
~Editor.~ _If I were Robert I should certainly start at once._
~Author.~ _No, I have it._)
As he sat there, his thoughts flew over the bridge of years, and he was wafted on the wings of memory to other and happier Yuletides. That Christmas when he had received his first bicycle....
That Christmas abroad....
The merry house-party at the place of his Cambridge friend....
Yuletide at the Towers, where he had first met Alice!
Ah!
Ten hours passed rapidly thus....
* * * * *
(~Author.~ _I put stars to denote the flight of years._
~Editor.~ _Besides, it will give the reader time for a sandwich._)
Robert got up and shook himself.
(~Editor.~ _One moment. This is a Christmas story. When are you coming to the robin?_
~Author.~ _I really can't be bothered about robins just now. I assure you all the best Christmas stories begin like this nowadays. We may get to a robin later; I cannot say._
~Editor.~ _We must. My readers expect a robin, and they shall have it. And a wassail-bowl, and a turkey, and a Christmas-tree, and a---- _
~Author.~ _Yes, yes; but wait. We shall come to little Elsie soon, and then perhaps it will be all right._
~Editor.~ _Little Elsie. Good!_)
Robert got up and shook himself. Then he shivered miserably, as the cold wind cut through him like a knife. For a moment he stood motionless, gazing over the stone parapet into the dark river beyond, and as he gazed a thought came into his mind. Why not end it all--here and now? He had nothing to live for. One swift plunge, and----
(~Editor.~ _You forget. The river was frozen._
~Author.~ _Dash it, I was just going to say that._)
But no! Even in this Fate was against him. _The river was frozen over!_ He turned away with a curse....
What happened afterwards Robert never quite understood. Almost unconsciously he must have crossed one of the numerous bridges which span the river and join North London to South. Once on the other side, he seems to have set his face steadily before him, and to have dragged his weary limbs on and on, regardless of time and place. He walked like one in a dream, his mind drugged by the dull narcotic of physical pain. Suddenly he realised that he had left London behind him, and was in the more open spaces of the country. The houses were more scattered; the recurring villa of the clerk had given place to the isolated mansion of the stockbroker. Each residence stood in its own splendid grounds, surrounded by fine old forest trees and approached by a long carriage sweep. Electric----
(~Editor.~ _Quite so. The whole forming a magnificent estate for a retired gentleman. Never mind that._)
Robert stood at the entrance to one of these houses, and the iron entered into his soul. How different was this man's position from his own! What right had this man--a perfect stranger--to be happy and contented in the heart of his family, while he, Robert, stood, a homeless wanderer, alone in the cold?
Almost unconsciously he wandered down the drive, hardly realising what he was doing until he was brought up by the gay lights of the windows. Still without thinking, he stooped down and peered into the brilliantly lit room above him. Within all was jollity; beautiful women moved