But as the fever declined, these slight
pleasures lost their hold. Then he was ridden to death by black
thoughts. Not only was day being added to day, he meanwhile not turning
over a penny; but ideas which he knew to be preposterous insinuated
themselves in his brain. Thus, for hours on end he writhed under the
belief that his present illness was due solely to the proximity of the
Great Swamp, and lay and cursed his folly in having chosen just this
neighbourhood to build in. Again, there was the case of typhoid he had
been anxious about, prior to his own breakdown: under his LOCUM,
peritonitis had set in and carried off the patient. At the time he had
accepted the news from Polly's lips with indifference--too ill to care.
But a little later the knowledge of what it meant broke over him, and he
suffered the tortures of the damned. Not Brace; he alone would be held
responsible for the death; and perhaps not altogether unjustly. Lying
there, a prey to morbid apprehensions, he rebuilt the case in memory,
struggling to recall each slight variation in temperature, each swift
change for better or worse; but as fast as he captured one such detail,
his drowsy brain let the last but one go, and he had to beat it up anew.
During the night he grew confident that the relatives of the dead woman
intended to take action against him, for negligence or improper
attendance.
An attempt to speak of these devilish imaginings to wife and friend was
a failure.
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