He was a little inclined to chaff them about their air of mystery, but, taking Marcella's tiredness and whiteness into account, he was expecting them to say they had been buying baby clothes, though it was rather unlike Marcella to keep anything secret.
Her tragic face and Mrs. King's eyes, red with weeping, froze the gay words on his lips when they came in just before lunch, where he was playing a slow game of nap with some of the boys in the kitchen.
They went upstairs to their old room. When the door was closed she said to him: "Louis, I've been to a doctor. He says I'm not well."
"I knew it. I told you, didn't I? You want a change, my dear," he said anxiously.
"I'm afraid it's rather more serious than that, Louis," she said gravely. "He seems to think it—it may be—cancer. Oh, I wish they'd call it something else! I hate that word. It's such a hungry word."
She was feeling stunned, and very frightened.
"But Marcella, it's ridiculous! For one thing, you're too young—"
"That's what the doctor thought. But he says it's been known—in textbooks, you know. A girl of eighteen that he knew had it. I'm to see two other doctors to-morrow."
He began to pace about the room. Then he laughed a little shrilly.
"Oh, it's a silly mistake. Doctors are not infallible, you know! He's brutal to have suggested it even. Oh damn these colonials! No English doctor would have told you."