ness brought a thought into my mind
that was so terrible, so overwhelming, that I staggered on the pavement
and had to clutch at a tree for support.

"My God," I said to myself, "what should I do if this illness proved to
be the plague?"

The very thought of such a thing was more than I could bear. It choked,
it suffocated me, taking all the pluck out of me and making me weaker
than a little child. But it could not be true, I said, happen what might
I would not believe it. Fate, which had brought so much evil upon me
already, could not be so cruel as to frustrate all my hopes just when I
thought I had turned the corner and was in sight of peace once more.

What the passers-by must have thought I do not know, nor do I care. The
dreadful thought that filled my mind was more to me than anyone else's
good opinion could possibly be. When I recovered myself I resumed my
walk to the hotel, breathing in gasps as the thought returned upon me,
and my whole body alternately flushing with hope and then numbed with
terror. More dead than alive I entered the building and climbed the
stairs to the sitting-room I had engaged. I had half hoped that on
opening the door I should find Valerie awaiting me there, but I was
disappointed. Unable to contain my anxiety any longer, I went along the
passage and knocked at the door of her room.

"Who is there?" a voice that I scarcely recognised asked in German.

"It is I," I replied. "Are you feeling better?"

"Yes, better," she answered, still in the same hard tone, "but I think I
would prefer to lie here a little longer. Do not be anxious about me, I
shall be quite myself again by dinner time."

I asked if there was anything I could procure for her, and on being
informed to the contrary, left her and went down to the manager's office
in the hope that I might be able to discover from him some way in which
we might escape to our own country.

"You have reached Hamburg at a most unfortunate time," he answered. "As
you are doubtless aware, the plague has broken out here, and Heaven
alone knows what we shall do if it continues. I have seen one of the
councillors within the last hour, and he tells me that three fresh cases
have been notified since midday. The evening telegrams report that more
than five thousand deaths have already occurred in Turkey and Russia
alone. It is raging in Vienna, and indeed through the whole of Austria.
In Dresden and Berlin it has also commenced its dreadful work,