But in those four hours since midday a complete change had come over me.

For good or evil I left that house committed to an enterprise that could not be talked about; which would have appeared to many senseless and perhaps ridiculous, but was certainly full of risks, and, apart from that, commanded discretion on the ground of simple loyalty.

It would not only close my lips but it would to a certain extent cut me off from my usual haunts and from the society of my friends; especially of the light-hearted, young, harum-scarum kind.

This was unavoidable.

It was because I felt myself thrown back upon my own thoughts and forbidden to seek relief amongst other lives--it was perhaps only for that reason at first I started an irregular, fragmentary record of my days.
I made these notes not so much to preserve the memory (one cared not for any to-morrow then) but to help me to keep a better hold of the actuality.