_August 27._--Heatherlegh has been indefatigable in his attendance
on me; and only yesterday told me that I ought to send in an
application for sick leave. An application to escape the company
of a phantom! A request that the Government would graciously
permit me to get rid of five ghosts and an airy 'rickshaw by going
to England. Heatherlegh's proposition moved me to almost
hysterical laughter. I told him that I should await the end quietly
at Simla; and I am sure that the end is not far off. Believe me that I
dread its advent more than any word can say; and I torture myself
nightly with a thousand speculations as to the manner of my death.

Shall I die in my bed decently and as an English gentleman should
die; or, in one last walk on the Mall, will my soul be wrenched
from me to take its place forever and ever by the side of that
ghastly phantasm? Shall I return to my old lost allegiance in the
next world, or shall I meet Agnes loathing her and bound to her
side through all eternity? Shall we two hover over the scene of our
lives till the end of Time? As the day of my death draws nearer,
the intense horror that all living flesh feels toward escaped spirits
from beyond the grave grows more and more powerful. It is an
awful thing to go down quick among the dead with scarcely
one-half of your life completed. It is a thousand times more awful
to wait as I do in your midst, for I know not what unimaginable
terror. Pity me, at least on the score of my "delusion," for I
know you will never believe what I have written here. Yet as
surely as ever a man was done to death by the Powers of Darkness
I am that man.

In justice, too, pity her. For as surely as ever woman was killed by