Her eyes were brooding on that now. Finally she exclaimed with an impatient gesture:
"How can I tell! He may get strong enough to leave me—in peace. He may come back again to rest and get well. And that may go on and on until one of us dies, or I am discharged. As I told you, they are trying now to exclude married teachers from the schools. And I am married!"
Sommers saw that she had faced the sordid situation; that she expected no relief from the clouds. He got up and looked at his watch.
"I shall come again. We will see what can be done."
This was a convention of the profession. Nothing could be done for that man, and he knew it. She knew it also. She smiled mournfully as they shook hands. Yet as he moved toward the door she asked in a low tone:
"Won't you tell me what you call it? There is no use in not telling me."
"Paresis," Sommers replied shortly. As her face was still inquiring, he added: "Brain trouble. In his case a kind of decay of the tissue; perhaps inherited, certainly hastened by his habits, probably precipitated by the operation."
His glance met hers, and they both fell silent before the common thought. In the practice of his profession he had done this for her, in obedience to the cowardly rules of that profession. He had saved life—animation—to this mass of corruption. Except for his skill, this waste being would have gone its way quietly to death, thereby purifying all life by that little. He added at last in a mechanical tone:
"That results sometimes from such an operation. You can't tell how it will affect the brain, especially when the history of the case is a bad one. He will have to be sent away to an institution if—; but the only thing now is to wait to see what will happen. Good night. I shall see you in a few days," he concluded abruptly.
He was determined to speculate no more, to give her no hopes that might prove groundless. The future was uncertain: the patient might have convulsions, paralysis, locomotor ataxia, mere imbecility with normal physical functions, or intermittent insanity. It was highly unprofessional to speculate in this loose fashion about the outcome of an operation.