cted upon this--that at the same time you will be
publicly attesting that your daughter has been exposed to the contagion?
With such an admission, an admission officially registered in the public
records, do you believe that she will find it easy to re-marry later
on?"

"She will never re-marry," said the father.

"She says that today, but can you affirm that she will say the same
thing five years from now, ten years from now? I tell you you will
not obtain that divorce, because I will most certainly refuse you the
necessary certificate."

"Then," cried the other, "I will find other means of establishing
proofs. I will have the child examined by another doctor!"

The other answered. "Then you do not find that that poor little one has
been already sufficiently handicapped at the outset of its life? Your
granddaughter has a physical defect. Do you wish to add to that a
certificate of hereditary syphilis, which will follow her all her life?"

Monsieur Loches sprang from his chair. "You mean that if the victims
seek to defend themselves, they will be struck the harder! You mean that
the law gives me no weapon against a man who, knowing his condition,
takes a young girl, sound, trusting, innocent, and befouls her with the
result of his debauches--makes her the mother of a poor little creature,
whose future is such that those who love her the most do not know
whether they ought to pray for her life, or for her immediate
deliverance? Sir," he continued, in his orator's voice, "that man has
inflicted upon the woman he has married a supreme insult. He has made
her the victim of the most odious assault. He has degraded her--he has
brought her, so to speak, into contact with the woman of the streets. He
has created between her and that common woman I know not what mysterious
relationship. It is the poisoned blood of the prostitute which poisons
my daughter and her child; that abject creature, she lives, she lives in
us! She belongs to our family--he has given her a seat at our hearth! He
has soiled the imagination and the thoughts of my poor child, as he
has soiled her body. He has united forever in her soul the idea of
love which she has placed so high, with I know not what horrors of the
hospitals. He has tainted her in her dignity and her modesty, in her
love as well as in her baby. He has struck her down with physical and
moral decay, he has overwhelmed her with vileness. And yet the law is
such, the customs of society ar