_August 4th._—The ghost has appeared again—or rather Janie imagines she has seen it, which is just as hurtful to her health and spirits. She had seemed so merry all to-day, and so far removed from the fanciful fears engendered by the natives’ stupid story, that after she and her cousin had retired to rest I took my cigar up to the roof of the house, as the heat has been most oppressive lately, and I longed for a breath of fresh air. Our house (like most others in Mushin-Bunda) is built with a flat roof, surrounded by a high parapet, which roof is reached from the verandah by a flight of steps so much resembling a ladder, that it is not often I can persuade the ladies to mount it. But, for my own part, I am constantly in the habit of taking my book and pipe (not to say my glass of brandy-and-water) to this elevated retreat, and, when there, thinking on anything or nothing, as the humour may take me. To-night my thoughts were not very cheerful ones; for, without any especial reason, I felt what is technically termed ‘dummy.’ Perhaps it is the excessive heat, perhaps the continued weakness of Janie, but somehow life has not appeared quite so sunny to me lately as it used to do. I feel so weary by the time the day is at an end, and so dissatisfied with the manner in which I have spent it, and I seem to rise each morning with some undefined hope which is never realised. I suppose it is the monotonous life we lead which breeds discontented thoughts; we so seldom encounter anything to draw us out of ourselves and our own concerns. And Margaret Anstruther’s disinclination to society has increased this disadvantage; for we three—Janie and she and I—have been thrown completely on each other for company during the last two months. And yet they have not passed unpleasantly. It is strange that I, who so much dreaded this interruption to the quiet life which I led with my wife, should be able to write those words and mean them. Yet I do mean them—though, at the same time, I cannot believe that the interruption has made me any happier, for I don’t think I ever felt so restless and unsettled as I do at present. I keep on fancying that something is going to happen to me; and start to remember that there is nothing at all the matter, and that if I have a cause for dissatisfaction, it must rest with myself. It _must_ be Janie’s illness that affects me in this manner; it is so unnatural to see the poor little woman always lying on the sofa, instead of running about with her cousin and myself.