“It is a poor soul, a hard-working, honest little creature, who has an old mother and an imbecile brother to support; and she’s nearly at an end of her strength. She needs to be braced up.”
“I wish I could send her away too,” Sara said pitifully; “but I’ve begged and begged for my cases until, positively, I haven’t the face to ask for any more money. My friends fly when they see me approaching, for fear I’m going to say ‘give, give!’” She laughed a little, and the doctor looked at her with critical amusement.
“But of the two, you’d give the—you’d give Nellie Sherman the chance for health?”
“Why, it’s only ‘bracing up’ that your poor woman needs,” Sara said, with a surprised look, “and you say Nellie will die if she doesn’t go away?”
“Perhaps that would be the best thing that could happen.”
“Dr. Morse! Would you have me let Nellie Sherman die, that three people should be made comfortable?”
“I would, indeed,” he said, with a whimsical smile.
She looked at him in silent dismay, and he thought she shrank a little.
“My dear Miss Wharton,” he said quickly, “just look at the situation: your poor Nellie is a moral leper; she is a contagion; she’s had her opportunity to get well (I speak spiritually); she has had a year and a half of the most patient and earnest effort expended upon her; but she hasn’t profited by it, and the probability is she is incurable. On the other hand, here is a woman who is a centre and source of moral health. Each needs physical restoration: one for her life, the other for her usefulness,—and, later, no doubt, her life, too. To which shall the chance be given?”