Then he made a long examination (returning repeatedly to the same place), and when it was over and he raised his face I thought it looked still more serious.
"My child," he said (I liked that too), "you've never spared yourself, have you?"
I admitted that I had not.
"When you've had anything to do you've done it, whatever it might cost you."
I admitted that also. He looked round to see if there was anybody else in the room (there was only the old doctor, who was leaning over the end of the bed, watching the face of his colleague) and then said, in a low voice:
"Has it ever happened that you have suffered from privation and hard work and loss of sleep and bad lodgings and . . . and exposure?"
His great searching eyes seemed to be looking straight into my soul, and I could not have lied to him if I had wished, so I told him a little (just a little) about my life in London—at Bayswater, in the East End and Ilford.
"And did you get wet sometimes, very wet, through all your clothes?" he asked me.
I told him No, but suddenly remembering that during the cold days after baby came (when I could not afford a fire) I had dried her napkins on my body, I felt that I could not keep that fact from him.
"You dried baby's napkins on your own body?" he asked.