ntre
of his being, and which by the pang of its escape almost broke him in
pieces. "I've never yawned like that before," he thought, apprehensive.
Another yawn of the same seismic kind succeeded immediately, and these
frightful yawns continued one after another for several minutes, each
leaving him weaker than the one before. "I'd better go home while I
can," he thought, intimidated by the suddenness and the mysteriousness
of the attack. He went home. Maggie at once said that he would be
better in bed, and to his own astonishment he agreed. He could not eat
the meal that Maggie brought to his room.

"There's something the matter with you," said Maggie.

"No. I'm only tired." He knew it was a lie.

"You're simply burning," she said, but she refrained from any argument,
and left him.

He could not sleep. His anticipations in that respect were painfully
falsified.

Later, Maggie came back.

"Here's Dr Heve," she said briefly, in the doorway. She was
silhouetted against the light from the landing. The doctor, in
mourning, stood behind her.

"Dr Heve? What the devil--" But he did not continue the protest.

Maggie advanced into the room and turned up the gas, and the glare
wounded his eyes.

"Yes," said Dr Heve, at the end of three minutes. "You've got it. Not
badly, I hope. But you've got it all right."

Humiliating! For the instinct of the Clayhangers was always to assume
that by virtue of some special prudence, or immunity, or resisting
power, peculiar to them alone, they would escape any popular affliction
such as an epidemic. In the middle of the night, amid feverish tossings
and crises of thirst, and horrible malaise, it was more than
humiliating! Supposing he died? People did die of influenza. The
strangest, the most monstrous things did happen. For the first time in
his life he lay in the genuine fear of death. He had never been ill
before. And now he was ill. He knew what it was to be ill. The
stupid, blundering clumsiness of death aroused his angry resentment.
No! It was impossible that he should die! People did not die of
influenza.

The next day the doctor laughed. But Edwin said to himself: "He may
have laughed only to cheer me up. They never tell their patients the
truth." And every cell of his body was vitiated, poisoned, inefficient,
profoundly demoralised. Ordinary health seemed the most precious and
the least attainable boon.

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