I

IT will surprise and at the same time possibly amuse you to know that
I had the instinct to tell what follows to a Priest, and might have
done so had not the Man of the World in me whispered that from
professional Believers I should get little sympathy, and probably
less credence still. For to have my experience disbelieved, or
attributed to hallucination, would be intolerable to me. Psychical
investigators, I am told, prefer a Medium who takes no cash
recompense for his performance, a Healer who gives of his strange
powers without reward. There are, however, natural-born priests who
yet wear no uniform other than upon their face and heart, but since I
know of none I fall back upon yourself, my other half, for in writing
this adventure to you I almost feel that I am writing it to myself.

The desire for confession is upon me: this thing must out. It is a
story, though an unfinished one. I mention this at once lest,
frightened by the thickness of the many pages, you lay them aside
against another time, and so perhaps neglect them altogether. A
story, however, will invite your interest, and when I add that it is
true, I feel that you will bring sympathy to that interest: these
together, I hope, may win your attention, and hold it, until you
shall have read the final word.

That I should use this form in telling it will offend your literary
taste--you who have made your name both as critic and creative
writer--for you said once, I remember, that to tell a story in
epistolary form is a subterfuge, an attempt to evade the difficult
matters of construction and delineation of character. My story,
however, is so slight, so subtle, so delicately intimate too, that a