"Certainly, he's dying--the quicker the better now, poor fellow. The glands are involved, and the end must come tolerably soon." "How long?" "Impossible to say. A few days probably. He keeps his strength wonderfully well." "But it would be better if he didn't? Wouldn't it be better if he died to-night?" "Much--for all our sakes," admitted the physician. "Can't you help him out of it, then?" "Impossible." "Why? You'd do as much for a horse or dog." "My business is to prolong life, not hasten death. The profession recognises no interference of that sort." "Who knows anything about it? A dying man dies, and there's an end." "I cannot listen to you, Mr. Baskerville. We must think of the greatest good and the greatest safety to the greatest number. The law is very definite in this matter, and I have my profession to consider. You look at an individual case; the law looks at the larger question of what is convenient for a State. Your brother is having medicinal doses of morphia as often as it is possible to give them to him without danger to life." "In fact, Nature must kill him her own hard way." "Much is being done to lessen his pain." "But a double dose of your physic would----" "End his life." "How?" "He would become unconscious and in three, or possibly four, hours he would die." "You'd call that murder?" "That is the only name for it as the law stands." "You won't do that?" "No, Mr. Baskerville. I wish I could help him. But, in a word, I have no power to do so." "Is it because you think 'twould be a wrong thing, or because you know 'tis unlawful?" asked the elder. "You might say 'twas impertinent to ask it, as it touches religion; but I'm ignorant and old, and want to know how it looks to the conscience of a learned man like you--you, that have been educated in all manner of deep subjects and the secrets of life." The doctor reflected. He was experienced and efficient; but like many other professional men, he had refused his reason any entrance into the arcanum of his religious opinions. These were of the customary nebulous character, based on tradition, on convention, on the necessity for pleasing all in a general practice, on the murmur of a mother's voice in his childhood. "I am a Christian," he said. "And I think it wrong to lessen by one moment the appointed life of any man." "But not wrong to lengthen it?" "That we cannot do." "Then surely you cannot shorten it, either? Tell me this, sir: why would you poison a dog that's dying, so that its misery may be ended?" "I will not argue about it. The cases are not parallel. Common humanity would, of course, put a period to the agony of any unconscious beast." "But wouldn't free an immortal soul from its perishing dirt?" "No. I am diminishing his pain enormously. I can do no more. Remember, Mr. Baskerville, that our Lord and Master healed the sick and restored the dead to life. He never shortened any man's days; He prolonged them."