"I accuse you of nothing," said the doctor. "But just once I'd like
to have it out with you on the question of Bibbs--and while he's here,
too." He got up, walked to the fire, and stood warming his hands
behind his back and smiling. "Look here, old fellow, let's be
reasonable," he said. "You were bound Bibbs should go to the shop
again, and I gave you and him, both, to understand pretty plainly that
if he went it was at the risk of his life. Well, what did he do? He
said he wanted to go. And he did go, and he's made good there. Now,
see: Isn't that enough? Can't you let him off now? He wants to
write, and how do you know that he couldn't do it if you gave him
a chance? How do you know he hasn't some message--something to say
that might make the world just a little bit happier or wiser? He
MIGHT--in time--it's a possibility not to be denied. Now he can't
deliver any message if he goes down there with you, and he won't HAVE
any to deliver. I don't say going down with you is likely to injure
his health, as I thought the shop would, and as the shop did, the
first time. I'm not speaking as doctor now, anyhow. But I tell you
one thing I know: if you take him down there you'll kill something
that I feel is in him, and it's finer, I think, than his physical
body, and you'll kill it deader than a door-nail! And so why not let
it live? You've about come to the end of your string, old fellow.
Why not stop this perpetual devilish fighting and give Bibbs his
chance?"

Sheridan stood looking at him fixedly. "What 'fighting?'"

"Yours--with nature." Gurney sustained the daunting gaze of his
fierce antagonist equably. "You don't seem to understand that you've
been struggling against actual law."