Ten years have elapsed since the events recorded took
place, but they were written down at the time. *       *       *       *       *

Jack Lorimer and I were very old friends before he married, and his
marriage to a first cousin of mine did not make, as so often happens, a
slackening in our intimacy. Within a few months after, it was found out
that his wife had consumption, and, without any loss of time, she was
sent off to Davos, with her sister to look after her. The disease had
evidently been detected at a very early stage, and there was excellent
ground for hoping that with proper care and strict regime she would be
cured by the life-giving frosts of that wonderful valley. The two had gone out in the November of which I am speaking, and Jack
and I joined them for a month at Christmas, and found that week after
week she was steadily and quickly gaining ground. We had to be back in
town by the end of January, but it was settled that Ida should remain
out with her sister for a week or two more. They both, I remember, came
down to the station to see us off, and I am not likely to forget the
last words that passed:

“Oh, don’t look so woebegone Jack,” his wife had said; “you’ll see me
again before long.”

Then the fussy little mountain engine squeaked, as a puppy squeaks when
its toe is trodden on, and we puffed our way up the pass. London was in its usual desperate February plight, when we got back,
full of fogs and still-born frosts that seemed to produce a cold far
more bitter than the piercing temperature of those sunny altitudes from
which we had come. We both, I think, felt rather lonely, and even before
we had got to our journey’s end we had settled that for the present it
was ridiculous that we should keep open two houses when one would
suffice, and would also be far more cheerful for us both. So, as we both
lived in almost identical houses in the same street in Chelsea, we
decided to “toss,” live in the house which the coin indicated (heads
mine, tails his) share expenses, attempt to let the other house, and, if
successful, share the proceeds. A French five-franc piece of the second
empire told us it was “heads.”

We had been back some ten days, receiving every day the most excellent
accounts from Davos, when, first on him, then on me, there descended
like some tropical storm, a feeling of indefinable fear. Very possibly
this sense of apprehension (for there is nothing in the world so
virulently infectious) reached me through him: on the other hand both
these attacks of vague foreboding may have come from the same source. But it is true that it did not attack me till he spoke of it, so the
possibility perhaps inclines to my having caught it from him. He spoke
of it first, I remember, one evening when we had met for a good-night
talk, after having come back from separate houses where we had dined. “I have felt most awfully down all day,” he said; “and just after
receiving this splendid account from Daisy, I can’t think what is the
matter.”

He poured himself out some whisky and soda as he spoke. “Oh, touch of liver,” I said. “I shouldn’t drink that if I were you. Give it me instead.”

“I was never better in my life,” he said. I was opening letters, as we talked, and came across one from the house
agent, which, with trembling eagerness I read. “Hurrah,” I cried, “offer of five guᵃˢ--why can’t he write it in proper
English--five guineas a week till Easter for number 31. We shall roll in
guineas!”

“Oh, but I can’t stop here till Easter,” he said. “I don’t see why not. Nor by the way does Daisy. I heard from her this
morning, and she told me to persuade you to stop. That’s to say, if you
like. It really is more cheerful for you here. I forgot, you were
telling me something.”

The glorious news about the weekly guineas did not cheer him up in the
least. “Thanks awfully. Of course I’ll stop.”

He moved up and down the room once or twice. “No, it’s not me that is wrong,” he said, “it’s It, whatever It is. The
terror by night.”

“Which you are commanded not to be afraid of,” I remarked. “I know: it’s easy commanding. I’m frightened: something’s coming.”

“Five guineas a week are coming,” I said. “I shan’t sit up and be
infected by your fears. All that matters, Davos, is going as well as it
can. What was the last report? Incredibly better. Take that to bed with
you.”

The infection--if infection it was--did not take hold of me then, for I
remember going to sleep feeling quite cheerful, but I awoke in some dark
still hour and It, the terror by night, had come while I slept. Fear and
misgiving, blind, unreasonable, and paralysing, had taken and gripped
me. What was it? Just as by an aneroid we can foretell the approach of
storm, so by this sinking of the spirit, unlike anything I had ever felt
before, I felt sure that disaster of some sort was presaged. Jack saw it at once when we met at breakfast next morning, in the brown
haggard light of a foggy day, not dark enough for candles, but dismal
beyond all telling. “So it has come to you too,” he said. And I had not even the fighting-power left to tell him that I was merely
slightly unwell. Besides, never in my life had I felt better. All next day, all the day after that fear lay like a black cloak over my
mind; I did not know what I dreaded, but it was something very acute,
something that was very near. It was coming nearer every moment,
spreading like a pall of clouds over the sky; but on the third day,
after miserably cowering under it, I suppose some sort of courage came
back to me: either this was pure imagination, some trick of disordered
nerves or what not, in which case we were both “disquieting ourselves in
vain,” or from the immeasurable waves of emotion that beat upon the
minds of men, something within both of us had caught a current, a
pressure. In either case it was infinitely better to try, however
ineffectively, to stand up against it. For these two days I had neither
worked nor played; I had only shrunk and shuddered; I planned for myself
a busy day, with diversion for us both in the evening. “We will dine early,” I said, “and go to the ‘Man from Blankley’s.’ I
have already asked Philip to come, and he is coming, and I have
telephoned for tickets. Dinner at seven.”

Philip, I may remark, is an old friend of ours, neighbour in this
street, and by profession a much-respected doctor. Jack laid down his paper. “Yes, I expect you’re right,” he said. “It’s no use doing nothing, it
doesn’t help things. Did you sleep well?”

“Yes, beautifully,” I said rather snappishly, for I was all on edge
with the added burden of an almost sleepless night. “I wish I had,” said he. This would not do at all. “We have got to play up!” I said. “Here are we two strong and stalwart
persons, with as much cause for satisfaction with life as any you can
mention, letting ourselves behave like worms. Our fear may be over
things imaginary or over things that are real, but it is the fact of
being afraid that is so despicable.