MME. DUPONT [_in a stifled voice_] Oh, are there not enough of these peasants in the world! DOCTOR. I beg your pardon? MME. DUPONT [_in the same tone_] I said that if she had no more children, there would only be the fewer to be unhappy. DOCTOR. It is useless for us to continue this discussion. MME. DUPONT [_rousing herself_] I shall not take your advice! I shall not listen to you! DOCTOR. There is one here already who regrets not having done so. GEORGE. Yes, O God, yes! MME. DUPONT [_more and more exalted_] I do not care! I do not care if I am punished for it in this world and the next! If it is a crime, if it is a sin, I accept all the responsibility, however heavy it may be! Yes, yes! If it must be, I will lose my soul to save our child’s life, our little one’s! I know that hell exists for the wicked: that is one of my profoundest convictions. Then let God judge me—if I am damned, so much the worse for me! DOCTOR. I shall not allow you to take that responsibility. To enable you to do so, my consent would be necessary, and I refuse it. MME. DUPONT. What do you mean? DOCTOR. I shall speak to the nurse and give her the fullest particulars, which I am convinced you have not done. MME. DUPONT. What! You, a doctor, would betray family secrets entrusted to you in the strictest confidence! Secrets of this kind! DOCTOR. The betrayal, if it is one, is forced on me by the law. MME. DUPONT. The law! I thought you were bound to secrecy? DOCTOR [_turning the pages of the volume of reports_] Not in this case. Here is a judgment given by the court at Dijon: I thought that I might have to read it to you. [_Reading_] ‘A doctor who knowingly omits to inform a nurse of the dangers incurred by her in giving milk to a syphilitic child may be held responsible in damages for the results caused by her ignorance.’ You see that the law is against you, as well as your conscience; and I may add that, even were it not so, I should not allow you to be led by your feelings into committing such a crime. If you do not consent to have the child fed by hand, I shall either speak to the nurse or give up the case. MME. DUPONT. You dare to threaten us! Oh, you know the power that your knowledge gives you! You know what need we are in of your services and that if you abandon us perhaps our child will die! And if we give way to you, she will die all the same! [_Wildly_] O my God, my God, why cannot I sacrifice myself? Oh, if only my aged body could take the place of this woman’s young flesh, and my poor dry breasts give to our child the milk that would save her life! With what joy I would give myself up to this disease! With what rapture I would suffer the most horrible ravages that it could inflict on me! Oh, if I could but offer myself, without fear and without regret! GEORGE [_flings himself into her arms with sobs and cries of_] Mother! Mother! Mother! _They weep._ DOCTOR [_to himself, moved_] Poor people! Poor people!