“How long did he live?”
“About six weeks. Nobody knew what he died of—he just seemed to fade away. You can’t imagine it, perhaps—but, Sunny, I wanted him to stay—even him! He was all I could ever have, and it seemed so cruel!” Suddenly the girl hid her face in her hands and began to sob—the first time that Sylvia had ever seen her do it in all her life.
So it was not the cheering visit that Sylvia had anticipated. It left her with much to think about, and to talk about with other people. Later on, speaking to Aunt Varina, she happened to mention something that van Tuiver had said about the matter; whereupon her aunt exclaimed, “You didn’t talk about it with Mr. van Tuiver!”
“But why not, Auntie?”
“You mustn’t do that, dear! You can’t tell.”
“Can’t tell what?”
“I mean, dear, that Harriet might have some disease that you oughtn’t to talk to Mr. van Tuiver about.” Aunt Varina hesitated, then added, in a whisper, “Some ‘bad disease’.”
Whereat Sylvia started in sudden dismay. So that was it! A “bad disease”!
You must understand how it happened that Sylvia had ideas on this subject. There was a foreign writer of plays, whose name she had heard. She had never seen his books, and would not have opened one, upon peril of her soul; but once, in a magazine picked up in a train, she had read a casual reference to an Ibsen play, which dealt with a nameless and dreadful malady. From the context it was made clear that this malady was a price men paid for evil living—and a price which was often collected from their innocent wives and children. Now and then the women of Sylvia’s family spoke in awe-stricken whispers of this mysterious taint, using the phrase “a bad disease.” Now, apparently, she was beholding the horror before her eyes!