while he was with his patient at a little house in the middle of the
street Marcella sat thinking. Loose ends of his talk floated about in
her grasping mind and she collected them to make him fasten them down
when he came back.

"Do you know, doctor, you've muddled me," she said as they turned
homewards in the teeth of the wind.

"I'm sorry for that, Marcella. You'd better forget what I've said.
Sitting alone so much I talk to myself, and I forgot I was talking
to a bit lassie like you. Forget things you don't understand."

"And then get more puzzled later on, when they crop up?" she said. "No.
I want you to tell me, now. I want to know, now, why mother was ill--and
why Jean and I have headaches."

"Your mother was ill through an accident," he said gravely. "I don't
wish to talk about that. And as for Jean and you--well, it's what we
expect of women. Man has made his women-folk invalids."

"Doctor!" she gasped.

"Women are always getting ill more or less. Their natural place in the
scheme of things makes them weaker. In the beginning of things they
were in a dangerous world; as the vehicle of the new life it was not
well that they should take their place amidst the same dangers as the
men. Otherwise the race might have died out. So they were adapted by
nature to a softer life. Their brains are smaller, their nerves more
sensitive. If they'd been made as strong as men, physically, nothing
would have kept them from fighting and exploring and getting killed."