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. "The way will mercifully be opened unto me. A light will be shown as a lamp to my feet." Anne's murmured words were barely to be heard, yet they bore, nevertheless, to the three men who listened, the full strength of her faith, firm as the Rock of Ages. The doctor arose hurriedly and went out into the passage, and stood for a while in the doorway, looking at the quiet big road, at the peace of the green earth, and at the sunlight flooding the blue heavens. When he turned back his sunken eyes were wet and he could not meet Anne's gaze nor the sick man's, which was also turned upon him with all its dumb, restless, desperate misery--with all its terrible voiceless clamor for relief. "I don't know what to do," he said, trying to speak lightly, but sighing in spite of himself and spreading out his hands. "I suppose we'll have to give it up, Tom, old fellow. Well, maybe Anne knows best after all. These wives of ours usually do know better what is good for us than we know ourselves. A good wife is always more to be depended upon than medicine when a man's pulling through a tedious convalescence. You don't need any more medicine. I am coming, though, every day, if I can--just as a neighbor, to see how you are getting along."