card, any time within the next week, I shall be grateful. My
instructions are not to press for an immediate answer." And the
gentleman bowed himself out.

He showed me a short letter which he had written accepting the
charge; and, shortly after, I rose to go. But he detained me rather
pointedly; and after a short time, in which he appeared to be
considering something, he begged me to sit down again, and consider
whether I would listen to a short statement of facts on which he
wanted my advice. "They are," he said, "I fear, a little painful,
and therefore I do not press it; but I should be sincerely obliged
to you."

He then said, "I did not at the time tell you, my dear Chris, what
Doctor Hall said to me the other day, because I thought it better to
tell no one; but the events of the last week have caused me to change
my mind. I feel that I must be perfectly open.

"The fact was, that he warned me that I showed unequivocal symptoms
of a dangerous heart disease. He could not answer for anything, he
said. I had seen that something was wrong from his expression, so I
insisted on knowing everything."

I can hardly describe my sensations at this announcement--I felt the
room swim and shake; and yet it was made in such a deliberate
matter-of-fact tone, that it flashed across me for an instant that
Arthur was joking, and together with it came a curiously dismal sense
of unreality, that is well known to all those who have passed through
any great strain or emotional crisis, as if, suddenly, the soul had
fallen out of everything, and they were nothing but lifeless empty
husks, hollow and phantasmal.

"But," I gasped, "you never said anything of this at the time:
you--you behaved just as usual."

"I certainly tried to," he said. "And curiously enough, I did not
either realize or fear the news at the time; it left my feelings
almost blank. I won't deny that it has caused me some painful thought
since.... He gave me a few simple directions: I was to avoid bracing
climates, hard physical work, or, indeed, mental effort--anything
exhausting; to keep regular hours, avoid hot rooms and society and
smoking; but that I might do, in moderation, anything that interested
me, write or read; and, above all things, I was to avoid agitation.

"I think I intend to put his ideas into practice; not much with the
idea of saving my life, for I don't feel particularly anxious about
that, but because I think that, on the whole, it is the most