second parts of the romance.

In response to many enquiries he may add that the name Ayesha, which
since the days of the prophet Mahomet, who had a wife so called, and
perhaps before them, has been common in the East, should be pronounced
_Assha_.




INTRODUCTION

Verily and indeed it is the unexpected that happens! Probably if there
was one person upon the earth from whom the Editor of this, and of a
certain previous history, did not expect to hear again, that person was
Ludwig Horace Holly. This, too, for a good reason; he believed him to
have taken his departure from the earth.

When Mr. Holly last wrote, many, many years ago, it was to transmit the
manuscript of _She_, and to announce that he and his ward, Leo Vincey,
the beloved of the divine Ayesha, were about to travel to Central Asia
in the hope, I suppose, that there she would fulfil her promise and
appear to them again.

Often I have wondered, idly enough, what happened to them there; whether
they were dead, or perhaps droning their lives away as monks in some
Thibetan Lamasery, or studying magic and practising asceticism under
the tuition of the Eastern Masters trusting that thus they would build a
bridge by which they might pass to the side of their adored Immortal.