h he looked up at her.

"What is it, mother?" he asked brutally.

She averted her eyes as she answered:

"Only a bit of a tumour, my boy. You needn't trouble. It's been
there--the lump has--a long time."

Up came the tears again. His mind was clear and hard, but his body was
crying.

"Where?" he said.

She put her hand on her side.

"Here. But you know they can sweal a tumour away."

He stood feeling dazed and helpless, like a child. He thought perhaps it
was as she said. Yes; he reassured himself it was so. But all the while
his blood and his body knew definitely what it was. He sat down on
the bed, and took her hand. She had never had but the one ring--her
wedding-ring.

"When were you poorly?" he asked.

"It was yesterday it began," she answered submissively.

"Pains?"

"Yes; but not more than I've often had at home. I believe Dr. Ansell is
an alarmist."

"You ought not to have travelled alone," he said, to himself more than
to her.

"As if that had anything to do with it!" she answered quickly.

They were silent for a while.

"Now go and have your dinner," she said. "You MUST be hungry."

"Have you had yours?"

"Yes; a beautiful sole I had. Annie IS good to me."

They talked a little while, then he went downstairs. He was very white
and strained. Newton sat in miserable sympathy.

After dinner he went into the scullery to help Annie to wash up. The
little maid had gone on an errand.

"Is it really a tumour?" he asked.

Annie began to cry again.

"The pain she had yesterday--I never saw anybody suffer like it!" she
cried. "Leonard ran like a madman for Dr. Ansell, and when she'd got to
bed she said to me: 'Annie, look at this lump on my side. I wonder what
it is?' And there I looked, and I thought I should have dropped. Paul,
as true as I'm here, it's a lump as big as my double fist. I said: 'Good
gracious, mother, whenever did that come?' 'Why, child,' she said, 'it's
been there a long time.' I thought I should have died, our Paul, I did.
She's been having these pains for months at home, and nobody looking
after her."

The tears came to his eyes, then dried suddenly.

"But she's been attending the doctor in Nottingham--and she never told
me," he said.

"If I'd have been at home," said Annie, "I should have seen for myself."

He felt like a man walking in unrealities. In the afternoon he went to
see the doctor. The latter was a shrewd, lovable man.

"But what is it?" he said.