Sara was very white; she still trembled, but she lifted her head and looked full at him. “Dr. Morse, are you God, to kill?” “Or you, to make alive?” he interrupted. “I did not ask you to kill--I asked you not to interfere--to allow God to work in his own way. I asked you to use that judgment which, in ordinary affairs, is so excellent--to consider _probabilities_; you do as much as that in refusing to leave a lighted candle in a powder magazine. What would you think of me, if I turned a smallpox patient loose in a crowd? Nellie is far more dangerous than smallpox. Don’t you see--surely you must see! that it would have been better for the community if she had died last summer?” “Better for the community,” Sara said passionately; “but what about Nellie? Would it have been better for Nellie?” “It could hardly be worse, could it?” he answered dryly; “but if it were worse, better one lost soul than two or three.” “God doesn’t lose souls so easily,” she cried; but he pressed the logic of her hope home. “Then why not have trusted Him, and let her die? Death isn’t the worst thing in the world! And may I remind you”--they had both risen; and from a cruel sort of justice on his part, and a horrified dismay on hers, anger was arising in their eyes--“may I remind you of a poor woman of whom I spoke that day you came to see me about Nellie? She is in the hospital, broken down absolutely; her brother is in the almshouse, and her mother living on charity. But Nellie Sherman, a thief, a liar, a prostitute, a moral imbecile, is in good health!” “You have no right to say such things,” Sara said, in a low voice. “I had to give that poor creature a chance to save her soul; and to do that I had to save her body”-- “And ruin Jack--body and soul”-- “That was not my business,” she flung back at him. “It was your business!” he said. “It was your business to weigh probabilities. Oh!” he ended, impetuously, “the trouble with us is, nowadays, that we make too much of _life_, and too little of _living_. It is living that is important, not existing! I tell you, Miss Wharton, there is only a limited amount of power in the world; only a limited amount of opportunity, or of money, for that matter; and we are bound to put power and opportunity and money where they will do the most good! Did you put them where they would do the most good?” Sara flinched, then rallied all her faith. “Dr. Morse, I did the duty which came to my hands; I had no choice.”