`` I wo n't have you flying away from me into the hearts of storms . '' They were sitting on their red sand-stone doorstep in the late afternoon . Great tranquillities were all about them in land and sea and sky . Silvery gulls were soaring over them . The horizons were laced with long trails of frail , pinkish clouds . The hushed air was threaded with a murmurous refrain of minstrel winds and waves . Pale asters were blowing in the sere and misty meadows between them and the harbor . `` Doctors who have to be up all night waiting on sick folk do n't feel very adventurous , I suppose , '' Anne said indulgently . `` If you had had a good sleep last night , Gilbert , you 'd be as ready as I am for a flight of imagination . '' `` I did good work last night , Anne , '' said Gilbert quietly . `` Under God , I saved a life . This is the first time I could ever really claim that . In other cases I may have helped ; but , Anne , if I had not stayed at Allonby 's last night and fought death hand to hand , that woman would have died before morning . I tried an experiment that was certainly never tried in Four Winds before . I doubt if it was ever tried anywhere before outside of a hospital . It was a new thing in Kingsport hospital last winter . I could never have dared try it here if I had not been absolutely certain that there was no other chance . I risked it -- and it succeeded . As a result , a good wife and mother is saved for long years of happiness and usefulness . As I drove home this morning , while the sun was rising over the harbor , I thanked God that I had chosen the profession I did .
I had fought a good fight and won -- think of it , XXXXX , WON , against the Great Destroyer .
Anne Gilbert first gulls morning night sere storms tranquillities years