"My dear child, I do not consider that there is any shame. The shame would die in repudiating a fundamental law of nature, of sacrificing two lives to the fetish of conventional morality. What are the conventions, that you should immolate yourself and your child to them? Your duty is this: to bring your child into the world strong and healthy, and you owe it to him to make his life as happy as shall lie in your power--beyond that, nothing can rightly be required of you, and you can do no less. You are no longer merely a girl, a woman, you are a mother!" Ragna lifted her head; Ferrati's words opened new vistas to her wondering gaze. "A mother!" she echoed. "Yes, a mother, and your first duty is to be true to your child--all the rest comes after." His voice softened as he read the response to his call in the girl's face. "You will be brave, you must be brave, for the little one's sake. You see that now, do you not?" "Yes, I understand that now--it was all so sudden, and so dreadful, it took me unawares. But I see that you are right, I will be brave now, I promise it." Ferrati had touched the right chord, the chord of self-sacrifice, the battle was won, and he knew it; never again would Ragna attempt self-destruction, come what might. "And now you will rest as I told you, until this afternoon?" She signified "yes" with her head. Ferrati brought a glass of water from the toilet table, and she took the little pellet. Then he rang for the chambermaid, and when she had come, said to her: "Help the Signorina into bed, she has a bad headache, and must rest. I have given her some sleeping medicine, and I leave it to you to see that she is not disturbed. You can tell the Signorina that I am coming back later, and will speak to her then." So he left the room a second time, his heart full of pity for the wretched girl, the more so, as he had found her so readily responsive to his appeal to duty. "Poor child!" he repeated. "Poor, poor child!" He returned to the Lido and lunched with his wife, but was silent and preoccupied. The Signora, accustomed to these moods of her husband's, when his patients caused him anxiety, forbore to question him. When he had finished eating, he lit his _toscano_, and walked up and down the long terrace of the hotel, his brows knit, his hands joined behind his back; finally he rejoined his wife in her room, whither she had retired for the siesta. She raised her head from the pillow, as he entered, and put down the novel she had been reading. "_Ebbene, Rico?_" she asked. "Virginia mia, I am worried about a patient of mine, a girl who is in great trouble--and I don't know what to do to help her!" "Ragna Andersen?" she asked quietly. "How did you guess?" "My dear man, you are so hopelessly transparent! Besides, I am not blind--a look at her face this morning would have been enough for anybody." "The fact is, Virginia, I don't know what to do about it." "Can't she go home?"