第43章

"But what shall you do then?"

"I -don't know."

"What are you going to be? A fashionable woman ? Or are you going to Europe, and settle down there with the other American failures? I've heard about them,--in Rome and Florence and Paris. Are you going to throw away the study you've put into this profession? You took it up because you wanted to do good. Don't you want to do good any more? Has the human race turned out unworthy?"

She cowered at this arraignment, in which she could not separate the mocking from the justice. "What do you advise me to do? Do you think I could ever succeed?"

"You could never succeed alone."

"Yes, I know that; I felt that from the first. But I have planned to unite with a woman physician older than myself."

"And double your deficiency. Sit down here," he said; "I wish to talk business." They had entered the border of the woods encompassing Jocelyn's, and he painted to a stump, beside which lay the fallen tree.

She obeyed mechanically, and he remained standing near her, with one foot lifted to the log; he leaned forward over her, and seemed to seize a physical advantage in the posture. "From your own point of view, you would have no right to give up your undertaking if there was a chance of success in it. You would have no more right to give up than a woman who had gone out as a missionary."

"I don't pretend to compare myself with such a woman; but I should have no more right to give up," she answered, helpless against the logic of her fate, which he had somehow divined.

"Well, then, listen to me. I can give you this chance. Are you satisfied that with my advice you could have succeeded in Mrs. Maynard's case?"

"Yes, I think so. But what"--"I think so, too. Don't rise!"

His will overcame the impulse that had betrayed itself, and she sank back to her seat. "I offer you my advice from this time forward; I offer you my help."

"That is very good of you," she murmured; "and I appreciate your generosity more than I can say. I know the prejudice you must have had to overcome in regard to women physicians before you could bring yourself to do this; and I know how you must have despised me for failing in my attempt, and giving myself up to my feeble temperament. But"--"Oh, we won't speak of all that," he interrupted. "Of course I felt the prejudice against women entering the profession which we all feel; it was ridiculous and disgusting to me till I saw you. I won't urge you from any personal motive to accept my offer. But I know that if you do you can realize all your hopes of usefulness; and I ask you to consider that certainly. But you know the only way it could be done."

She looked him in the eyes, with dismay in her growing intelligence.

"What--what do you mean?"

"I mean that I ask you to let me help you carry out your plan of life, and to save all you have done, and all you have hoped, from waste--as your husband. Think"--She struggled to her feet as if he were opposing a palpable resistance, so strongly she felt the pressure of his will. "It can't be, Dr.

Mulbridge. Oh, it can't, indeed! Let us go back; I wish to go back!"

But he had planted himself in her way, and blocked her advance, unless she chose to make it a flight.

"I expected this," he said, with a smile, as if her wild trepidation interested him as an anticipated symptom. "The whole idea is new and startling to you. But I know you won't dismiss it abruptly, and I won't be discouraged."

"Yes, yes, you must! I will not think of it! I can't! I do dismiss it at once. Let me go!"

"Then you really choose to be like the rest,--a thing of hysterical impulses, without conscience or reason! I supposed the weakest woman would be equal to an offer of marriage. And you had dreamt of being a physician and useful!"

"I tell you," she cried, half quelled by his derision, "that I have found out that I am not fit for it,--that I am a failure and a disgrace; and you had no right to expect me to be anything else."

"You are no failure, and I had a right to expect anything of you after the endurance and the discretion you have shown in the last three weeks.

Without your help I should have failed myself. You owe it to other women to go on."

"They must take care of themselves," she said. "If my weakness throws shame on them, they must bear it. I thank you for what you say. I believe you mean it. But if I was of any use to you I did n't know it."

"It was probably inspiration, then," he interrupted coolly. "Come, this isn't a thing to be frightened at. You're not obliged to do what I say.

But I think you ought to hear me out. I haven't spoken without serious thought, and I didn't suppose you would reject me without a reason."