e aware
of a second presence in the chamber, and turned with an actual assurance
that some one stood behind me. I was alone, as a single glance about the
room informed me, but the sense of that second presence was so clearly
defined and positive that the mere evidence of sight seemed doubtful.

The day's work began in the manner which had of late grown customary,
and in a while the fog gave way to a brilliance unusually flushed and
hectic. The uninvited, invisible personage kept his place, until, even
with the constant fancy that he was there looking over my shoulder, and
so close that there was always a risk of contact, I grew to disregard
him. All day long he watched the pen travelling over the paper, all day
long I was aware of him, featureless, shadowy, expressionless, with a
vague cheek near my own. During the brief interval I gave myself
for luncheon he stood behind my chair, and, being much refreshed and
brightened by my morning's work, I mocked him quite gaily.

'Your name is Nerves,' I told him within myself, 'and you live in the
land of Mental Overwork. I have still a fortnight's stretch across the
country you inhabit, and if you so please you may accompany me all the
way. You may even follow me into the land of Repose which lies beyond
your own territory, but its air will not agree with you. You will
dwindle, peak, and pine in that exquisite atmosphere, and in a very
little while I shall have seen the last of you.'

After luncheon I took a constitutional on the pier, not without a hope
that my featureless friend might be blown away by the gusty wind, which
came bellowing up from the Firth of Forth, with enough stinging salt and
vivifying freshness in it, one might have fancied, to shrivel up a host
of phantoms. I tramped him up and down the gleaming planks in the keen
salt wind for half an hour, and he shadowed me unshrinkingly. With
the worst will in the world I took him home, and all afternoon and all
evening he stuck his shadowy head over my shoulder, and watched the pen
as it spread its cobweb lines over the white desert of the paper. He
waited behind my chair at dinner, and late at night, when the long day's
work at last was over, he hung his intrusive head over my shoulder and
stared into the moderate glass of much-watered whisky which kept a final
pipe in company.

He had grown already into an unutterable bore, and when he insisted upon
passing the night with me I could--but for the obvious inutilit