n if one has deserved it." The doctor paused,
and then with some excitement he went on: "Come, sir, come, we must
understand each other. Among men the most exacting, among those who with
their middle-class prudery dare not pronounce the name of syphilis,
or who make the most terrifying faces, the most disgusted, when they
consent to speak of it--who regard the syphilitic as sinners--I should
wish to know how many there are who have never exposed themselves to a
similar misadventure. They and they alone have the right to speak. How
many are there? Among a thousand men, are there four? Very well, then.
Excepting those four, between all the rest and the syphilitic there is
nothing but the difference of chance."

There came into the doctor's voice at this moment a note of intense
feeling; for these were matters of which evidence came to him every day.
"I tell you, sir, that such people are deserving of sympathy, because
they are suffering. If they have committed a fault, they have at least
the plea that they are expiating it. No, sir, let me hear no more of
that hypocrisy. Recall your own youth, sir. That which afflicts your
son-in-law, you have deserved it just as much as he--more than he,
perhaps. Therefore, have pity on him; have for him the toleration which
the unpunished criminal ought to have for the criminal less fortunate
than himself upon whom the penalty has fallen. Is that not so?"

Monsieur Loches had been listening to this discourse with the feeling of
a thief before the bar. There was nothing that he could answer. "Sir,"
he stammered, "as you present this thing to me--"

"But am I not right?" insisted the doctor.

"Perhaps you are," the other admitted. "But--I cannot say all that to my
daughter, to persuade her to go back to her husband."

"You can give her other arguments," was the answer.

"What arguments, in God's name?"

"There is no lack of them. You will say to her that a separation would
be a misfortune for all; that her husband is the only one in the world
who would be devoted enough to help her save her child. You will say to
her that out of the ruins of her first happiness she can build herself
another structure, far stronger. And, sir, you will add to that whatever
your good heart may suggest--and we will arrange so that the next child
of the pair shall be sound and vigorous."

Monsieur Loches received this announcement with the same surprise that
George himself had manifested. "Is that poss