like any
other disease that is dangerous to the health of the community. It is
not contrary to etiquette to break your peculiar professional secrecy
in the case of a woman, but it would be in the case of a man; so you
punish the women, and let the men go free to spread the evil from one
generation to another as they like. O justice! O consistency! I don't
wonder we have been shunned since we came to Slane. A man in your
position is a mere pander, and right glad am I of what I have suffered
from the scorn and contempt of the people who would not associate with
us. It shows that the right spirit is abroad in the community."

"Pander!" Dan ejaculated. "I am sorry to hear you use such a word,
Beth."

"It is the right word, unfortunately," she answered.

"You oughtn't to know anything about these things," the chaste Daniel
observed, with an air of offended delicacy. "Women can't know enough
to see the matter from the right point of view, and so they make
mischief."

"Ah, you don't appreciate that women have grown out of their
intellectual infancy," Beth said, "and have opinions and a point of
view of their own in social matters, especially where their own sex is
concerned. You are still in the days of old Chavasse, who expatiates
in his 'Advice to a Wife' on the dangers of men marrying unhealthy
women, but says not a word of warning to women on the risk of marrying
unhealthy men. You would keep us blindfolded as we were in his day,
and abandon us to our fate in like manner; but it can't be done any
more, my friend. You can hide nothing from sensible women now that
concerns the good of the community. We know there is no protection for
women against this infamous disease, and no punishment for the men who
spread it; and we consider the fact a disgrace to every medical man
alive."

"You have a nice opinion of the men of your husband's profession!" Dan
observed sarcastically.

"I have the highest opinion of medical men--such medical men as Sir
George Galbraith," she replied. "I have seen something of their
high-mindedness, their courage, their devotion, and their genuine
disinterestedness; and I feel sure that in time their efforts will
leaven the whole mass of callousness and cruelty against which they
have to contend in their profession. The hope of humanity is in the
doctors, and they will not fail us. Like Christ, they will teach as
well as heal."

"Rubbish!" said Dan. "As I've told you before, it isn't our busine