Then suddenly she came sharply back to the practical, brought herself ruthlessly back to it, as if fearing it was her practicality he would question. "Besides, Karl's work is the more important. Nobody is going to die for a water colour or an oil painting; people are dying every day for the things Karl can give. But, doctor,"--far too feminine not to press the advantage--"if I can do _that_, don't you think you can afford to break through your conservatism and--you _will_, doctor, won't you?" But Dr. Parkman had wheeled his chair about so that she could not see his face. His eyes had grown a little dim. "You see, doctor,"--gently,--"what I am going to give to it? Not only the things any one else could give, but all my love for Karl, and added to that all those things within myself which have heretofore been poured into my own work. I _can_ paint, doctor, you and I know that, and I think you know something of how I love it. Something inside of me has always been given to it--a great big something for which there is no name. Now I am going to just force all that into a new channel, and don't you see how much there will be to give? And in practical ways too I can make my own work count. I know how to use my hands--and there isn't a laboratory assistant in the whole University of Chicago knows as much about colour as I do!"--she smiled like a pleased child. He looked at her then--a long look. He had forgotten the moisture in his eyes,--he did not mind. And it was many years since any one had seen upon Dr. Parkman's face the look which Ernestine saw there now. "Isn't it strange, doctor," she went on, after a pause, "how we think we understand, and then suddenly awake to find we have not been understanding at all? Karl and I had a long talk yesterday, and in that talk he seemed able to let me right into it all. All summer long I did my best, but I see now I had not been understanding. And understanding as I do now--caring as I care--do you think I can sit quietly by and see Karl make himself over to fit this miserable situation? Do you think I am going to help him adjust himself to giving up the great thing in him? No--he is not going to accept it! I tell you Karl is to be Karl--he is to do Karl's work--and find Karl's place. Why I tell you, Dr. Parkman, I will not _have_ it any other way!" It was a passionate tyranny of the spirit over which caution of mind seemed unable to prevail. His reason warned him--I cannot see how this and this and that are to be done, but the soul in her voice seemed drawing him to a light out beyond the darkness. "Doctor,"--her eyes glowing with a tender pride--"think of it! Think of Karl doing his work in spite of his blindness! Won't it stand as one of the greatest things in the whole history of science?" He nodded, the light of enthusiasm growing more steady in his own eye.