oomy disturbance of mind. It was getting up too early; it fogs old
brains. Good-bye, good-bye.'

He squeezed Lawford's hand. Then, with umbrella under his arm, his hat
on his head, his spectacles readjusted, he hurried out of the room. Mrs
Lawford followed him. For a few minutes Lawford sat motionless, with
head bent a little, and eyes restlessly scanning the door. Then he rose
abruptly, and in a quarter of an hour was in bed, alone with his slow
thoughts: while a basin of cornflour stood untasted on a little table
at his bedside, and a cheerful fire burned in the best visitors' room's
tiny grate.

At half-past eleven Dr Simon entered this soundless seclusion. He sat
down beside Lawford, and took temperature and pulse. Then he half closed
his lids, and scanned his patient out of an unusually dark, un-English
face, with straight black hair, and listened attentively to his rather
incoherent story. It was a story very much modified and rounded off.
Nor did Lawford draw Dr Simon's attention to the portrait now smiling
conventionally above their heads from the wall over the fireplace.

'It was rather bleak--the wind; and, I think, perhaps, I had had a
touch of influenza. It was a silly thing to do. But still, Dr Simon, one
doesn't expect--well, there, I don't feel the same man--physically. I
really cannot explain how great a change has taken place. And yet I feel
perfectly fit in myself. And if it were not for--for being laughed at,
go back to town, to-day. Why my wife scarcely recognised me.'

Dr Simon continued his scrutiny. Try as he would, Lawford could not
raise his downcast eyes to meet direct the doctor's polite attention.

'And what,' said Dr Simon, 'what precisely is the nature of the change?
Have you any pain?'

'No, not the least pain,' said Lawford; 'I think, perhaps, or rather my
face is a little shrunken--and yet lengthened; at least it feels so;
and a faint twinge of rheumatism. But my hair--well, I don't know; it's
difficult to say one's self.' He could get on so very much better,
he thought, if only his mind would be at peace and these preposterous
promptings and voices were still.

Dr Simon faced the window, and drew his hand softly over his head.
'We never can be too cautious at a certain age, and especially after
influenza,' he said. 'It undermines the whole system, and in particular
the nervous system; leaving the mind the prey of the most melancholy
fancies. I should astound you, Mr Lawford, with