received an answer from Mr. Mannering, and that, thanks to
his (Heatherlegh's) friendly offices, the story of my affliction had
traveled through the length and breadth of Simla, where I was on all
sides much pitied.

"And that's rather more than you deserve," he concluded pleasantly,
"though the Lord knows you've been going through a pretty severe mill.
Never mind; we'll cure you yet, you perverse phenomenon."

I declined firmly to be cured. "You've been much too good to me already,
old man," said I; "but I don't think I need trouble you further."

In my heart I knew that nothing Heatherlegh could do would lighten the
burden that had been laid upon me.

With that knowledge came also a sense of hopeless, impotent rebellion
against the unreasonableness of it all. There were scores of men no
better than I whose punishments had at least been reserved for another
world and I felt that it was bitterly, cruelly unfair that I alone
should have been singled out for so hideous a fate. This mood would in
time give place to another where it seemed that the 'rickshaw and I were
the only realities in a world of shadows; that Kitty was a ghost; that
Mannering, Heatherlegh, and all the other men and women I knew were all
ghosts and the great, gray hills themselves but vain shadows devised to
torture me. From mood to mood I tossed backwards and forwards for seven
weary days, my body growing daily stronger and stronger, until the
bed-room looking-glass told me that I had returned to everyday life, and
was as other men once more. Curiously enough, my face showed no signs
of the struggle I had gone through. It was pale indeed, but as
expressionless and commonplace as ever. I had expected some permanent
alteration--visible evidence of the disease that was eating me away.
I found nothing.

On the 15th of May I left Heatherlegh's house at eleven o'clock in the
morning; and the instinct of the bachelor drove me to the Club. There
I found that every man knew my story as told by Heatherlegh, and was, in
clumsy fashion, abnormally kind and attentive. Nevertheless I recognized
that for the rest of my natural life I should be among, but not of, my
fellows; and I envied very bitterly indeed the laughing coolies on the
Mall below. I lunched at the Club, and at four o'clock wandered
aimlessly down the Mall in the vague hope of meeting Kitty. Close to the
Band-stand the black and white liveries joined me; and I heard Mrs.
Wessington's old appeal