"Hush," he said. "There are faults too noble to be accounted faults. But—if you think you were at all to blame—you must atone, by truly and faithfully helping in my fight to root up the Upas tree."
"Ronnie," she said, "a pair of baby hands will help us both. We must learn to live life at its highest, for the sake of our little son."
Then, knowing he had endured as much heart-searching as a man could bear and be the better for it, she said, smiling:
"Ronnie, his funny little hands are so absurdly like yours."
"Like mine?" repeated Ronnie, as one awaking slowly from a sad dream, to a blissful reality. "Why are they like mine?"
"Because he is a tiny miniature of you, you dear, silly old boy! You do not seem to understand that you are actually a father, Ronnie, with a little son of your own!"
She looked up into his worn face, and saw the young glad joy of life creep slowly back into it.
"And his mouth, darling—his little mouth is just like yours; only, as I told you in the letter, when I kiss it—it does not kiss back, Ronnie."
"What?" cried Ronnie. "What?" Then he understood; and, this time, it was no mirage. Ronnie's desert wanderings were over.