"Besides being men, we, too, are physicians!" he said. "Brutal as this
sounds, it is truth!"

The light burned dangerously in Priscilla's eyes.

"When you are physicians--you are _not_ men!" she panted, and suddenly,
by a sharp stab of memory, Ledyard's words, back in the boyhood days at
Kenmore, stung Travers. They were like an echo in his brain.

"You--you of all women, cannot say that and mean it, my darling!" he
cried, and tried to draw her to him. She resisted.

"Our love, the one sacred thing of our very own," he pleaded, "is in
peril." He saw it now. "Can you not see? Even if it is woman against
woman, what right have you, Priscilla, to cloud and hurt our love?"

"It is not--woman against woman--any more." The words came sweetly,
almost joyously; something like renunciation tinged them. "It is woman
_for_ woman until men will take us by the hands, trustingly, faithfully,
and work with us for what belongs equally to us both!"

The radiance of the uplifted eyes frightened Travers. So might she look,
he thought, had she passed through death and come out victorious.

"Now, just for a time," the tense, thrilling voice went on, "she and
I--women--must stand alone, and do our best as we see it. It is no good
leaving it to--to any man. I see that! And our love, yours and mine! Oh!
dear man of my heart, that can never die or be hurt. It is yours, mine!
God gave it. God will not take it away. God will not take Margaret's