Now at length, when I had not thought of them for months, without a
single warning sign, out of the blue as it were, comes the answer to
these wonderings!

To think--only to think--that I, the Editor aforesaid, from its
appearance suspecting something quite familiar and without interest,
pushed aside that dingy, unregistered, brown-paper parcel directed in an
unknown hand, and for two whole days let it lie forgotten. Indeed there
it might be lying now, had not another person been moved to curiosity,
and opening it, found within a bundle of manuscript badly burned upon
the back, and with this two letters addressed to myself.

Although so great a time had passed since I saw it, and it was shaky
now because of the author's age or sickness, I knew the writing at
once--nobody ever made an "H" with that peculiar twirl under it except
Mr. Holly. I tore open the sealed envelope, and sure enough the first
thing my eye fell upon was the signature, _L. H. Holly_. It is long
since I read anything so eagerly as I did that letter. Here it is:--

"My dear sir,--I have ascertained that you still live, and strange to
say I still live also--for a little while.

"As soon as I came into touch with civilization again I found a copy of
your book _She_, or rather of my book, and read it--first of all in a
Hindostani translation. My host--he was a minister of some religious
body, a man of worthy but prosaic mind--expressed surprise that a 'wild
romance' should absorb me so much. I answered that those who have wide
experience of the hard facts of life often find interest in romance. Had
he known what were the hard facts to which I alluded, I wonder what that
excellent person would have said?