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._