“Oh, she may live for years, but she suffers horribly, and she will suffer more.”
“And you say he does not know?”
“No.”
“Why, look here, Robert, dare you assume the responsibility? What will he say when he finds out that you have kept it from him?”
“I don't care,” said Robert. “I will not break an oath exacted by a woman in such straits as that, and I don't see what good it could do to tell him.”
“He might persuade her to have the operation.”
“His mere existence is persuasion enough, if she is to be persuaded. And I hope she may consent before long. She has seemed a little more comfortable lately, too.”
“I suppose sometimes those hideous things go away as mysteriously as they come,” said Risley.
“Yes,” replied Robert. “Going back to our first subject—”
Risley laughed. “Here she is coming,” he said.