I must

work harder and take more vigorous exercise. The horrid thoughts never

come when my mind is much occupied. But they are always there—waiting

and as it were alive.

What I have attempted to describe above came first upon me

gradually after I had been some days in the house, and then grew

steadily in strength. The other strange thing has come to me.only twice

in all these weeks. It appals me. It is the consciousness of the

propinquity of some deadly and loathsome disease. It comes over me

like a wave of fever heat, and then passes off, leaving me cold and

trembling. The air seems for a few seconds to become tainted. So

penetrating and convincing is the thought of this sickness, that on

both occasions my brain has turned momentarily dizzy, and through my

mind, like flames of white heat, have flashed the ominous names of all

the dangerous illnesses I know. I can no more explain these visitations

than I can fly, yet I know there is no dreaming about the clammy skin

and palpitating heart which they always leave as witnesses of their

brief visit.

Most strongly of all was I aware of this nearness of a mortal

sickness when, on the night of the 28th, I went upstairs in pursuit of

the listening figure. When we were shut in together in that little

square room under the roof, I felt that I was face to face with the

actual essence of this invisible and malignant disease. Such a feeling

never entered my heart before, and I pray to God it never may again.

There! Now I have confessed. I have given some expression at least

to the feelings that so far I have been afraid to see in my own

writing. For—since I can no longer deceive myself—the experiences of

that night (28th) were no more a dream than my daily breakfast is a

dream; and the trivial entry in this diary by which I sought to

explain away an occurrence that caused me unutterable horror was due

solely to my desire not to acknowledge in words what I really felt and

believed to be true. The increase that would have accrued to my horror

by so doing might have been more than I could stand.

Dec. 3.—I wish Chapter would come. My facts are all ready

marshalled, and I can see his cool, grey eyes fixed incredulously on

my face as I relate them: the knocking at my door, the well-dressed

caller, the light in the upper window and the shadow upon the blind,

the man who preceded me in the snow, the scattering of my clothes at

night, Emily’s arrested confession, the landlady’s suspicious

reticence, the midnight listener on the stairs, and those awful

subsequent words in my sleep; and above all, and hardest to tell, the

presence of the abominable sickness, and the stream of thoughts and

ideas that are not my own.

I can see Chapter’s face, and I can almost hear his deliberate

words, “You’ve been at the tea again, and underfeeding, I expect, as

usual. Better see my nerve doctor, and then come with me to the south

of France.” For this fellow, who knows nothing of disordered liver or

high-strung nerves, goes regularly to a great nerve specialist with

the periodical belief that his nervous system is beginning to decay.

Dec. 5.—Ever since the incident of the Listener, I have kept a

night-light burning in my bedroom, and my sleep has been undisturbed.

Last night, however, I was subjected to a far worse annoyance. I woke

suddenly, and saw a man in front of the dressing-table regarding

himself in the mirror. The door was locked, as usual. I knew at once

it was the Listener, and the blood turned to ice in my veins. Such a

wave of horror and dread swept over me that it seemed to turn me rigid

in the bed, and I could neither move nor speak.