_October 28._
AMICE, is sick—I don't know what ails her, but she has been growing
thin and pale ever since the pestilence, and now she has been obliged
to take to her bed. She does not suffer much, save from her weakness,
which so affects her nerves that she can hardly bear any one in the
room with her, but prefers to stay alone. The doctor says she is to
have her way in all things—a sentence which always sounds to me like
that of death. My heart is like to break with the thought, but there is
no help. Nobody will ever know what she has been to me.