“Nothing! Nothing much!” she gasped, but when he knelt by her side she drooped across his shoulder, broken with the terrible power of sympathy, and sobbed: “Mist’ RoBards, I’m afraid!” CHAPTER XLVIII Within the silken walls of Patty’s body, still beautiful as a jar of rose leaves, a secret enemy was brooding, building. A tulip tree, a tree of death was pushing its roots all through her flesh. There had been no pain at first and nothing to warn her that life was confusedly conspiring against itself. Then there were subtle distresses, strange shafts of anguish like javelins thrown from ambush. Her suspicions were so terrifying that she had feared to see a doctor. But now RoBards compelled her to go with him to consult an eminent surgeon. She endured his professional scrutiny, his rude caresses. At last he spoke with a dreadful kindliness and did not rebuke her as of old for indiscretions or neglects. He told her that there was trouble within that needed attention as soon as she was a little stronger. She smiled wanly and went out to the waiting carriage. To RoBards who lingered for a last word, Dr. Marlowe whispered: “For Christ’s sake, don’t tell her. It’s cancer!” If death could have come to him from fright, RoBards would have died then. He toppled as if he had been smitten with the back of a broadsword. He turned eyes of childlike appeal to the dismal eyes of the physician, who was more helpless than his victims since he knew better than they how much woe is abroad. Dr. Marlowe laid a hand on RoBards’ shoulder as a man might say: “I will go to the guillotine with you. The only dignity left is bravery. Let us not forget our etiquette.” But to be brave for another’s doom! To be plucky about the fact that his wife, his sweetheart, the infanta of his love, was to be torn to pieces slowly by the black leopard of that death—this was a cowardly bravery to his thinking. He was brave enough to confess his utter, abject terror. He went through what thousands had once felt when their beloved were summoned to the torture chamber. He fought his panic down lest Patty be alarmed. He wrestled with the mouth muscles that wanted to scream protests and curses; and he made them smile when he went out and sank in the carriage beside her and told the driver “Home!” as one might say “To the Inquisition!” And Patty smiled at him and hummed: “We-e-e-eave no mo-o-ore silks, ye Ly-y-ons loo-oo-oo-ooms.” She knew that the doctor was glazing over his fatal discovery. She knew that her husband’s smile was but the grimace of one poisoned with the sardonic weed. She was afraid, though, to reveal her intuition lest she lose control of her own terrors, leaping and baying like mad hounds at the leashes of her nerves. The only hope the coupled humans had of maintaining a decent composure was in keeping up the lie. They were calm as well-bred people are when a theatre catches fire and they disdain to join the shrieking, trampling herd.