The last act takes place in the hospital--the refuge of the unfortunate victims of poverty, ignorance and false morality. _M. Loche_, the Deputy, is announced. The doctor is overjoyed because he believes that the representative of the people comes to inform himself of the causes of the widespread misery. But he is mistaken. _M. Loche_ is the father-in-law of _George Dupont_. He wants to secure the signature of the doctor as evidence in the divorce sought by his daughter. _Doctor._ I regret that I am unable to furnish you with such a certificate.... The rule of professional secrecy is absolute. And I may add that even were I free, I should refuse your request. I should regret having helped you to obtain a divorce. It would be in your daughter's own interest that I should refuse. You ask me for a certificate in order to prove to the court that your son-in-law has contracted syphilis? You do not consider that in doing so you will publicly acknowledge that your daughter has been exposed to the infection. Do you suppose that after that your daughter is likely to find a second husband?... Do you think that this poor little thing has not been unlucky enough in her start in life? She has been blighted physically. You wish besides indelibly to stamp her with the legal proof of congenital syphilis. _Loche._ Then what am I to do? _Doctor._ Forgive.... When the marriage was proposed you doubtless made inquiries concerning your future son-in-law's income; you investigated his securities; you satisfied yourself as to his character. You only omitted one point, but it was the most important of all: you made no inquiries concerning his health. _Loche._ No, I did not do that. It is not the custom.... I think a law should be passed. _Doctor._ No, no! We want no new laws. There are too many already. All that is needed is for people to understand the nature of this disease rather better. It would soon become the custom for a man who proposed for a girl's hand to add to the other things for which he is asked a medical statement of bodily fitness, which would make it certain that he did not bring this plague into the family with him.... Well, there is one last argument which, since I must, I will put to you. Are you yourself without sin, that you are so relentless to others? _Loche._ I have never had any shameful disease, sir.