I gave her my fountain pen and held my notebook under the document, to stiffen it while she scribbled her signature at the bottom, and to have it in my hands as soon as she had finished. While I fanned the paper dry she said:

“If that’s what she wants it’s all right with me. What do I care what anybody does now? I’m done. Hell with them all!” She sniggered and suddenly threw the bedclothes down to her knees, showing me a horrible swollen body in a coarse white nightgown. “How do you like me? See, I’m done.”

I pulled the covers up over her again and said:

“Thanks for this, Miss Jennison.”

“That’s all right. It’s nothing to me any more. Only”⁠—her puffy chin quivered⁠—“it’s hell to die ugly as this.”