“I don’t really know. There were so many things, and I didn’t put them together. I began having headaches a great deal; and then pains that the doctors called neuralgia. I had a bad sore throat over in Europe; I thought the climate disagreed with me, but I’ve had it again at home. And now eruptions break out; the doctors treat them with things, and they go away, but then they come back. All my hair is falling out, and I’ve got to wear a wig.”
“Why, how perfectly horrible!” cried Sylvia.
She started to embrace her friend, but was repelled. “I mustn’t kiss anyone,” said Harriet. “You see, it might be contagious—one can’t be sure.”
“But what are you going to do, Harriet?”
“I’ve almost given up hoping. I haven’t really cared so much, since the doctors told me I can never have another baby. You know, Sunny, it’s curious—I never cared about children, I thought they were nuisances. But when mine came, I cared—oh, so horribly! I wanted to have a real one.”
“A real one?” echoed Sylvia.
“Yes. I didn’t write you about it, and perhaps I oughtn’t to tell you just at this time. But you know, Sunny, he didn’t seem like a human being at all; he was a little gray mummy.”
“Harriet!”
“Just like that—a regular skeleton, his skin all loose, so that you could lift it up in folds. He was a kind of earthy color, and had no hair, and no finger nails——”
Sylvia broke out with a cry of horror, and her friend stopped. “I haven’t talked to anyone about it,” she said—“I guess I oughtn’t to, even to you.”