am not afraid." Then she took command, while Travers stood amazed. She
put her hands on his shoulders and held him so before the bar of her
crude, woman-judgment.

"Answer me, my beloved! You believe--what I have told you?"

"I do."

"You know Doctor Hapgood will do no more?"

"He--cannot."

"If you go to Doctor Ledyard--and he knows and believes--what will he
do?"

"He has been Huntter's physician for years. If he has been mistaken, he
will go to Huntter."

"Go to--Huntter! And what then? Suppose Mr. Huntter--still takes the
chance?"

"Ledyard will--he will forbid it!"

"And what good will that do?" A pitiful bitterness crept into Priscilla's
voice; her lips quivered.

"It is all Huntter! Huntter! All men! men! and there stands my
dear--alone! No one goes to her to let--_her_ choose; no one but me!
Don't you see what I mean? Oh! my love, my love! My good, good man, can
you leave her there in ignorance, all of you? Through the ages she has
not had her say--about the chance, and that is why----"

Priscilla paused, choked by rising passion.

"Little girl, listen! What do you mean?" Travers was genuinely alarmed
and anxious.

"I mean"--the white, set face looked like an avenger's, not a
passionately loving woman's--"I mean--that because women have never had
an opportunity to know and to choose, you and I, and all people like us,
stand helpless with our own great heaven-sent love at peril!"

"At peril! Oh, my dear girl!"

"Yes, at peril. We do not know what to do, where to turn. You see the
great injustice clearly as I do; but you--all men have tried to right it
by themselves, in their way, while all women, through all the ages, have
stood aside and tried to think they were doing God's will when they
accepted--your best; your _half_ best! Now, oh! now something--I think it
is God calling loud to them--is waking them up. They know--you cannot do
this thing alone; it is their duty, too--they must help you, for,
oh!"--Priscilla leaned toward him with tear-blinded eyes and pleading
hands--"For the sake of the--the little children of the world. Oh! men
are fathers, good fathers, but they have forgotten the part mothers must
take! We women cannot leave it all to you. It is wicked, wicked for women
to try! There is something mightier than our love--we are learning that!"

Travers took her in his arms. She was weeping miserably. His heart
yearned over her, for he feared she was feeling, as women sometimes did,