"Dr. Parkman, the only weak people in this world are the people who sit down and say that things are impossible. The only big people are the people who stand up and declare in the face of whatsoever comes that nothing is impossible. For Karl there is some excuse; the shock has been too great--his blindness has shut him in. But you and I are out in the light of day, doctor, and I say that you and I have been weaklings long enough." He had never been called a weakling before--he had never thought to be called a weakling, but the strangeness of that was less strange than something in her eyes, her voice, her spirit, which seemed drawing him on. "Karl has lost his eyes. Has he lost his brain--any of those things which make him Karl? All that has been taken away is the channel of communication. I am not presuming to be his brain. All I ask is to carry things to the brain. Why, doctor,--I'm ashamed, _mortified_--that we hadn't thought of it before!" "But--how?" he finally asked, weakly enough. "I will go into Karl's laboratory and learn how to work--all that part of it I want you to arrange for me. After all, I have a good foundation. I think I told you about my father, and how hard he tried to make a scientist of me? And it was queer about my laboratory work. It was always easy for me. I could _see_ it, all right--enough my father's child for that, but you see my working enthusiasm and ambition were given to other things. Now I'll make things within me join forces, for I _will_ love the work now, because of what it can do for Karl. I need to be trained how to work, how to observe, and above all else learn to tell exactly what I see. I shall strive to become a perfectly constructed instrument--that's all. And I _will_ be better than the usual laboratory assistant, for not having any ideas of my own I will not intrude my individuality upon Karl--to blur his vision. I shall not try to deduce--and mislead him with my wrong conclusions. I shall simply _see_. A man who knew more about it might not be able to separate what he saw from what he thought--and that would be standing between Karl and the facts." He was looking at her strangely. "And your own work--what would be happening to it, if you were to do--this?" "I have given my own work up," she said, and she said it so simply that it might have seemed a very simply matter. "You can't do that," he met her, sharply. "Yes,"--slowly--"I can. I love it, but I love Karl more. If I have my work he cannot have his, and Karl has been deprived of his eyes--he is giving up the sunlight--the stars--the face he loves--many things. I thought it all out last night, and the very simple justice of it is that Karl is the one to have his work." She was dwelling upon it,--a wonderful tenderness lighting her face; for the minute she had forgotten him.