of The Tatler, with the confidence of Guy Walsingham, the brilliant
author of 'Obsessions.' She pronounced herself thoroughly pleased
with my sketch of her method; she went so far as to say that I had
made her genius more comprehensible even to herself."

Neil Paraday had dropped on the garden-bench and sat there at once
detached and confounded; he looked hard at a bare spot in the lawn,
as if with an anxiety that had suddenly made him grave. His
movement had been interpreted by his visitor as an invitation to
sink sympathetically into a wicker chair that stood hard by, and
while Mr. Morrow so settled himself I felt he had taken official
possession and that there was no undoing it. One had heard of
unfortunate people's having "a man in the house," and this was just
what we had. There was a silence of a moment, during which we
seemed to acknowledge in the only way that was possible the
presence of universal fate; the sunny stillness took no pity, and
my thought, as I was sure Paraday's was doing, performed within the
minute a great distant revolution. I saw just how emphatic I
should make my rejoinder to Mr. Pinhorn, and that having come, like
Mr. Morrow, to betray, I must remain as long as possible to save.
Not because I had brought my mind back, but because our visitors
last words were in my ear, I presently enquired with gloomy
irrelevance if Guy Walsingham were a woman.

"Oh yes, a mere pseudonym--rather pretty, isn't it?--and
convenient, you know, for a lady who goes in for the larger
latitude. 'Obsessions, by Miss So-and-so,' would look a little
odd, but men are more naturally indelicate. Have you peeped into
'Obsessions'?" Mr. Morrow continued sociably to our companion.