Published: Civil and Military Gazette, 20 October 1887.

Attribution: In Scrapbook 3 (28/3, p. 149).

Text: Civil and Military Gazette.

Note: Unrecorded and unreprinted.

In an access of unprofessional candour and wearied, it may have been, by the continual importunity of the patient, the Doctor broke through his established rule of always keeping his clients hopeful to the last gasp, and announced, solemnly as befitted his office, that Such an One had not six months to live. This was said, in a lowered voice and to the face of Such an One, who had so earnestly desired the information, at noon or a little later, on the 19th of September. The nature of Such an One's complaint concerns nobody. It may or may not have been heart-disease, some obscure affection of the nerves, or a score of other things. The main point is, that on the date aforesaid, Such an One was formally sentenced to death by his medical attendant – cast overboard, while yet living, from the ship of life, to find his way as best he could to the ferry where Charon waited. He had asked for certain news; and if he discovered the certainty well-nigh unendurable, had only himself to blame. But, curiously enough, he did not find the foreknowledge a horror – that is to say, after the first day and night of it had passed. Of that season of terror and despair it is better, perhaps, to say nothing. Had the Doctor said: “at the end of six months you will surely die,” the minutes and hours in the one hundred eighty-two days could have been calculated, and their number would have been, for a time at least, a comfortable hedge against the black darkness of the night to come. But the Doctor said “within six months,” which haziness of date left nothing to cling to. Hence the great fear that unnerved Such an One, who had sworn to the Doctor that he was strong enough to bear any news, and endure any suddenness of fate.

After the terror, came the reaction, because it is mercifully ordained that a man cannot go in extreme fear of his life for so long as a week without a break. He becomes callous or reckless.