Chapter 15 - Page 2

shall trust her in your hands," said Mr. Carlton, trying to assume a cheerful air. "But I cannot help feeling nervous and extremely anxious."

"You are, of course, over-sensitive about everything that touches one so dear as your wife," replied the doctor. "But do not give yourself needless anxiety. Tumors in the neck are generally of the kind known as 'benignant,' and are easily removed."

Dr. Angier came into the office while they were talking, and heard a part of the conversation. As soon as Mr. Carlton had retired he asked if the tumor were deep-seated or only a wen-like protuberance.

"Deep-seated, I infer, from what Mr. Carlton said," replied Dr. Hillhouse.

"What is her constitution?"

"Not as free from a scrofulous tendency as I should like."

"Then this tumor, if it should really prove to be one, may be of a malignant character."

"That is possible. But I trust to find only a simple cyst, or, at the worst, an adipose or fibrous tumor easy of removal, though I am sorry it is in the neck. I never like to cut in among the large blood-vessels and tendons of that region."

At twelve o'clock Doctor Hillhouse made the promised visit. He found Mrs. Carlton to all appearance quiet and cheerful.

"My husband is apt to worry himself when anything ails me," she said, with a faint smile.

The doctor took her hand and felt a low tremor of the nerves that betrayed the nervous anxiety she was trying hard to conceal. His first diagnosis was not satisfactory, and he was not able wholly to conceal his doubts from the keen observation of Mr. Carlton, whose eyes never turned for a moment from the doctor's face. The swelling was clearly outlined, but neither sharp nor protuberant. From the manner of its presentation, and also from the fact that Mrs. Carlton complained of a feeling of pressure on the vessels of the neck, the doctor feared the tumor was larger and more deeply seated than the lady's friends had suspected. But he was most concerned as to its true character. Being hard and nodulated, he feared that it might prove to be of a malignant type, and his apprehensions were increased by the fact that his patient had in her constitution a taint of scrofula. There was no apparent congestion of the veins nor discoloration of the skin around the hard protuberance, no pulsation, elasticity, fluctuation or soreness, only a solid lump which the doctor's sensitive touch recognized as the small section or lobule of a deeply-seated tumor already beginning to press upon and obstruct the blood vessels in its immediate vicinity. Whether it were fibrous or albuminous, "benignant" or "malignant," he was not able in his first diagnosis to determine.

Dr. Hillhouse could not so veil his face as to hide from Mr. Carlton the doubt and concern that were