“Don’t talk foolishly, Nettie,” he said; “you suit me.”

“That’s it,” she said quickly; “I suit you—­but I do not suit the church women, the Civic Club women, the Hospital Aid women, the Children’s Shelter women; they call me a slacker, and I am beginning to think I am.”

“I would like to know what they have to do with it?” he said hotly; “you are my wife and I am the person concerned.”

Without noticing what he said, she continued:  “Once I wanted to adopt a baby, you remember, when one of your patients died, and I would have loved to do it; but you said you must not be disturbed at night and I submitted.  Still, if it had been our own, you would have had to be disturbed and put up with it like other people, and so I let you rule me.  I have never had any opinion of my own.”

“Nettie, you are excited,” he said gently; “you are upset, poor girl, about my going away—­I don’t wonder.  Come out with me; I am going to speak at a recruiting meeting.”

Her first impulse was to refuse, for there were many things she wanted to think out, but the habit of years was on her and she went.

The meeting was a great success.  It was the first days of the war, when enthusiasm seethed and the little town throbbed with excitement.  The news was coming through of the destruction and violation of Belgium; the women wept and men’s faces grew white with rage.

Dr. Winters’s fine face was alight with enthusiasm as he spoke of the debt that every man now owes to his country.  Every man who is able to hold a gun, he said, must come to the help of civilization against barbarism.  These dreadful outrages are happening thousands of miles away, but that makes them none the less real.  Humanity is being attacked by a bully, a ruffian,—­how can any man stay at home?  Let no consideration of family life keep you from doing your duty.  Every human being must give an account of himself to God.  What did you do in the great day of testing? will be the question asked you in that great day of reckoning to which we are all coming.

When he was through speaking, amid the thunderous applause, five young men walked down to the front and signified their intention of going.

“Why, that’s Willie Shepherd, and he is his mother’s only support,” whispered one of the women; “I don’t think he should go.”

When they went home that night Mrs. Winters told the Doctor what she had heard the women say, and even added her remonstrance too.

“This is no time for remonstrance,” he had cried; “his mother will get along; the Patriotic Fund will look after her.  I tell you human relationships are forgotten in this struggle!  We must save our country.  One broken heart more or less cannot be taken into consideration.  Personal comfort must not be thought of.  There is only one limit to service and sacrifice, and that is capacity.”

Every night after that he addressed meetings, and every night recruits came to the colors.  His speeches vibrated with the spirit of sacrifice and the glory of service, and thrilled every heart that listened, and no heart was more touched than that of his wife, who felt that no future in the world would be so happy as to go and care for the wounded men.