profound gratitude. I am grateful, both because I have been given
the privilege of relating these events, and because I shall not
have to leave this wilderness of facts for someone else to
explain.

Really, if I did not know that I shall have the pleasure of
piecing together these phenomena and of setting my finger upon the
comparatively simple explanation; if I had to go away and leave
this account unfinished, a mere collection of curiosity-provoking
mysteries, I should not speak at all. I should leave the whole
affair for another to finish, as it ought to be finished.

All of which, it will soon appear, I am setting forth largely in
order to brace and strengthen myself against what I must now
relate.

Before resuming, however, I should mention one detail which Harry
was too modest to mention. He was--or is--unusually good-looking.
I don't mean to claim that he possessed any Greek-god beauty; such
wouldn't gibe with a height of five foot seven. No; his good looks
were due to the simple outward expression, through his features,
of a certain noble inward quality which would have made the
homeliest face attractive. Selfishness will spoil the handsomest
features; unselfishness will glorify.

Moreover, simply because he had given his word to Chick Watson
that he would wear the ring, Harry took upon himself the most
dangerous task that any man could assume, and he had lost. But had
he known in advance exactly what was going to happen to him, he
would have stuck to his word, anyhow. And since there was a