She paused, as though to be very sure of herself here. "Then, doctor, looking a little farther into it, one sees something else. If there were some one close enough to Karl to bring to his brain, through some other medium than eyes, the things the eyes would naturally carry; if there were some one close enough to make things just as plain as though Karl were seeing them himself, then"—her voice gathered in intensity—"despite the loss of his eyes, he could go right on with his work."
"Um—well, yes, if such an impossible thing were possible."
"But it is possible! Oh if I can only make you see this now! Doctor, don't you see it? I am closer to him than any one in the world! I am the one to take up his work!"
He pushed back his chair and sat staring at her speechlessly.
"Dr. Parkman," she began—and it seemed now that he had never known her at all before—"most of the biggest things ever proposed in this world have sounded very ridiculous to the people who first heard of them. The unprecedented has usually been called the impossible. Now I ask you to do just one thing. Don't hold my idea at arm's length as an impossibility. Look it straight in the face without prejudice. Who would do more for Karl than any one else on earth? Who is closer to him than any one else in the world? Who can make him see without seeing?—yet, know without knowing? Dr. Parkman,"—voice eager, eyes very tender—"is there any question in your mind as to who can come closest to Karl?"
"But—but—" he gasped.
"I know," she hastened—"much to talk over; so many things to overcome. But won't you be very fair to me and look at it first as a whole? The men in Karl's laboratory know more about science than I do. But they do not know as much about Karl. They have the science and I have the spirit. I can get the science but they could never get the spirit. After all, isn't there some meaning in that old phrase 'a labour of love'? Doctor"—her smile made it so much clearer than her words—"did you ever hear of knowledge and skill working a miracle? Do you know anything save love which can do the impossible?"
He did not speak at once. He did not find it easy to answer words like that. "But, my dear Mrs. Hubers," he finally began—"you are simply assuming—"
"Yes,"—and the tenderness leaped suddenly to passion and the passion intensified to sternness—"I am simply assuming that it can be done, and through obstacle and argument, from now until the end of my life, I am going on assuming that very thing, and furthermore, Dr. Parkman,"—relaxing a little and smiling at him under standingly—"just as soon as the light has fully dawned upon you, you are going to begin assuming that, and you are the very man—oh, I know—to keep on assuming it in the face of all the obstacles which the University of Chicago—yes, and all creation—may succeed in piling up. There is one thing on which you and I are going to stand very firmly together. That thing,"—with the deep quiet of finality—"is that Karl shall go on with his work."
Dr. Parkman had never been handled that way before; perhaps it was its newness which fascinated him; at any rate he seemed unable to say the things he felt he should be saying.