MME. DUPONT. I am glad to tell you, doctor, that you can now devote yourself to the baby and the nurse without misgiving. While you have been away we have informed the nurse of the circumstances, and agreed with her that she shall stay with us in return for a certain sum of money. DOCTOR. The disease which the nurse will almost infallibly contract in giving her milk to the child is, I fear, too serious to be made the subject of a bargain, however large the sum of money. She might be completely crippled, even if she did not die of it. MME. DUPONT. But she accepts. DOCTOR. It is not only that she would be rendered incapable of serving in future as wet nurse without danger to the infants she suckled. The results of the disease to herself might be inconsiderable; but at the same time, I repeat, they might, in spite of everything we could do, cast a terrible blight upon her life. MME. DUPONT. But I tell you she accepts. She has the right to do what she pleases. DOCTOR. I am not sure that she has the right to sell her own health, but I am sure that she has not the right to sell the health of her husband and of her children. If she contracts this disease, she will almost certainly communicate it to both of them; and, further, the life and health of any children she might afterwards have would be gravely endangered. You understand now that it is impossible for her to make a bargain of this kind. If the mischief is not already done, every effort must be made to prevent it. MME. DUPONT. You say: ‘If the mischief is not done.’ Can you not be certain? DOCTOR. Not as yet. There is a period of five or six weeks between the moment of contracting the disease and the appearance of its first symptoms. MME. DUPONT. You think of nothing but the nurse. You do not think of our poor little baby. What can we do? We cannot let her die. GEORGE. We can’t, we can’t! DOCTOR. Neither can you endanger the life of this woman. MME. DUPONT. You are not defending our interests! DOCTOR. I am defending those of the weakest. MME. DUPONT. If we had called in our own doctor, he would have taken our side. DOCTOR. I doubt it. [_Rising_] But there is still time to send for him. GEORGE. Mother! I beg you not to go, doctor. MME. DUPONT [_supplicating him_] Oh, don’t abandon us! You can make allowances—If you only knew what this child was to me! I feel as if I had staved off death to wait for it. Have pity on us! Our poor little girl—she is the weakest, surely. Have pity on her! When you saw her tiny, suffering body, did you not feel any pity for her? Oh, I beseech you! GEORGE. Doctor, we implore you! DOCTOR. Indeed I pity her and I will do everything in my power to save her. But you must not ask me to sacrifice the health of a young and strong woman to that of a sickly infant. I will be no party to giving this woman a disease that would embitter the lives of her whole family, and almost certainly render her sterile.