| CHAPTER I | CHAPTER II | CHAPTER III | CHAPTER IV |
| CHAPTER V | CHAPTER VI | CHAPTER VII | CHAPTER VIII |
| CHAPTER IX | CHAPTER X | CHAPTER XI |
IT will surprise and at the same time possibly amuse you to know thatI had the instinct to tell what follows to a Priest, and might havedone so had not the Man of the World in me whispered that fromprofessional Believers I should get little sympathy, and probablyless credence still. For to have my experience disbelieved, orattributed to hallucination, would be intolerable to me. Psychicalinvestigators, I am told, prefer a Medium who takes no cashrecompense for his performance, a Healer who gives of his strangepowers without reward. There are, however, natural-born priests whoyet wear no uniform other than upon their face and heart, but since Iknow of none I fall back upon yourself, my other half, for in writingthis 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 astory, though an unfinished one. I mention this at once lest,frightened by the thickness of the many pages, you lay them asideagainst another time, and so perhaps neglect them altogether. Astory, however, will invite your interest, and when I add that it istrue, I feel that you will bring sympathy to that interest: thesetogether, I hope, may win your attention, and hold it, until youshall have read the final word.
That I should use this form in telling it will offend your literarytaste—you who have made your name both as critic and creativewriter—for you said once, I remember, that to tell a story inepistolary form is a subterfuge, an attempt to evade the difficultmatters of construction and delineation of character. My story,however, is so slight, so subtle, so delicately intimate too, that aletter to some one in closest sympathy with myself seems the onlyform that offers.
It is, as I said, a confession, but a very dear confession: I burn totell it honestly, yet