"There is only one thing to do. We must find a partner for Tom—Mr. Gordon here has kindly offered—and we must give him a real good, lively game of cards."
It was out now, and he was glad and sorry at the same time.
Anne gave a startled cry, inarticulate, like the terror of a dumb creature. She recoiled as if a black pit had opened at her feet.
"Tom's need is very great. He is very, very weak," the doctor urged, in the space of the recoil.
Anne instantly flew to her husband as the mother bird flies to the fallen fledgling, and laid her little trembling hands on his broken shoulders, as the mother bird spreads her weak wings between helplessness and danger.
"I will take care of him," she said, speaking out of that tender, protecting maternal instinct which is the divine part of every good woman's love for her husband.
"I can see no other way," the doctor urged gently, not knowing what else to say.
"There must be some other way! Surely our Father never forces us to commit sin. Surely in His mercy He gives us a choice;" Anne panted, like a frightened wild creature at bay.
Yet she faced the two men steadily over her husband's powerless head, her clear eyes clouded darkly now, and her set face as white and as inscrutable as the cold mask of death.
"I can only say again what I have said before," the doctor repeated weakly, glancing at Anne and quickly looking away.