I did my best to struggle against it; I walked, I rode, I laughed and chatted with Mrs.Everard and her husband, and forced myself into sociability with some of the visitors at the hotel, who were disposed to show us friendly attention.

I summoned all my stock of will-power to beat back the insidious physical and mental misery that threatened to sap the very spring of my life; and in some of these efforts I partially succeeded.

But it was at night that the terrors of my condition manifested themselves.

Then sleep forsook my eyes; a dull throbbing weight of pain encircled my head like a crown of thorns; nervous terrors shook me from head to foot; fragments of my own musical compositions hummed in my ears with wearying persistence--fragments that always left me in a state of distressed conjecture; for I never could remember how they ended, and I puzzled myself vainly over crotchets and quavers that never would consent to arrange themselves in any sort of finale.

So the days went on; for Colonel Everard and his wife, those days were full of merriment, sight-seeing, and enjoyment.
For me, though outwardly I appeared to share in the universal gaiety, they were laden with increasing despair and wretchedness; for I began to lose hope of ever recovering my once buoyant health and strength, and, what was even worse, I seemed to have utterly parted with all working ability.