“Let’s hear about the circumstances,” suggested Dr. Strong.
“About two years ago—”
“That’s a bad beginning,” interrupted the physician, shaking his head.
“—She noticed a small lump in her right breast. It didn’t trouble her much—”
“It seldom does at the start.”
“—And she didn’t want to alarm her husband; so she said nothing about it. It kept getting a little larger very slowly, but there was no outside sore; so she thought it couldn’t be serious. If it were, she thought, it would pain her.”
“That fatal mistake! Pain is a late symptom in cancer—usually too late.”
“It was curious the way she finally came to find out. She read an advertisement in the paper, headed, ‘Any Lump in Woman’s Breast is Cancer.’”
“Yes; I know that advertisement. It’s put out by a scoundrel named Chamlee. Surely, she didn’t try his torturing treatment?”
“Oh, no. Agnes is too intelligent for that. But it frightened her into going to her doctor. He told her that a radical operation was her only chance. She was terribly frightened,—more afraid of the knife than of the disease, she told me,—and she insisted on delay until the pain grew intolerable. And now, they say, there’s only a slight chance. Isn’t it pitiful?”