"And it pains me now,--a sort of dull aching. I wonder if it's coming to anything. Just feel it, Mark."
Mark Cray drew her light cotton dressing-gown tight across the place, and passed his fingers gently over and over it. He was not so utter a tyro in his profession as to be ignorant that the lump might mean mischief. Caroline, with most rapid quickness of apprehension, noted and did not like his silence.
"Mark! what is it? What's going to be the matter with me?"
"Nothing, I hope," replied Mark, speaking readily enough now. "It will go away, I daresay. Perhaps you have been fidgeting with it this morning."
"No, I have not done that. And if the lump meant to go away, why should it get larger? It does get larger, Mark. It seems to me that it has nearly doubled its size in the last week."
"I think it is a little larger," acknowledged Mark, feeling perhaps that he could not get out of the confession. "How long has it pained you?"
"I can't remember. The pain came on so imperceptibly that I hardly know when it first began. What is the lump, Mark?"
"I can't tell."
"You can't tell?"
"I can't tell yet. Sometimes lumps appear and go away again, and never come to anything."