"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.
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