did you withhold it?  Why, after the first shock, did you feel glad to face the prospect of bearing it alone; glad I should be away?  Ah, here we find the very roots of the Upas tree!  Was it not because, during the whole of our married life, I have been cheerfully, complacently selfish?  I have calmly accepted as the rule of the home, that I should hear of no worries which you could keep from me, tread upon no thorns which you could clear out of my path, bear no burdens which your loving hands could lift and carry out of sight.  Your interests, your pleasures, your friends, your pursuits, all have been swept on one side, if they seemed in the smallest degree likely to interfere with my work, my desires, my career.  You have lived for me—­absolutely.  I have lived for myself.  True, we have loved each other tenderly; we have been immensely happy.  But, all the while, the shadow of the Upas tree was there.  My very love was selfish!  It was sheer joy to love you, because you are so sweetly, so altogether, lovable.  But when did I—­because of my love for you—­do one single thing at any cost to self?  I was utterly, preposterously, altogether, selfish!  You knew this.  You knew I hated pain, or worry, or anything which put my comfortable life out of gear.  So you gladly let me go, leaving you to bear it all alone.  You knew that, had you told me, I should have given up my book and stayed with you; because my self-love would have been more wounded by going than by staying.  But you also knew that during all those months you would have had to listen while I bemoaned the circumstances, and bewailed my plot.  You knew the bloom would be taken off the coming joy, so you preferred to let me go.  Oh, Helen, is not this true?”

She bent her head and kissed his hand.  She was weeping silently.  She could not say it was not true.

“It was the Upas tree indeed,” said Ronnie.

“Darling,” she whispered, “it was my fault too—­”

“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.”