Late one afternoon Peter set off to walk to the market-town. He was expecting a letter from his publishers. He had given them the market-town post-office as his permanent address. It was a glorious day, and the sunlight lay warmly on the fields.  
During the day he had been writing, but his work had not gone well. That which in brain-imagery had seemed original and lifelike, in articulation appeared to him commonplace and dull. Who would care to read the drivel he was committing to paper? His thoughts, his fancies, of what interest would they be to the multitude? Of what value even to two or three?
 
Peter was in a mood dangerous for his own creation. His first book had come directly from his inner being, written for the pure love of inscribing [Pg 70]in lucid words the thoughts which filled his brain. The same reason had urged him to write again. Then suddenly before him like a menace rose up an image—the Public. His work would go out to it, had already gone out to it. How would it be received? And if with smiles the first moment, who could tell whether the smiles might not the next be changed to frowns?
 
He felt like a man whose chance witticism has won him the post of Jester. What anxiety must precede each lightly spoken word that follows; the knowledge that the wings of spontaneity had been clipped, though the knowledge perchance was his alone; the inward wince at a rebuff, the joy at applause! Jester to the many-faced public! Was this to be his rôle? Truly, if a little knowledge be a dangerous thing, a little success appeared quite as dangerous. Had he the strength to forget his audience; to speak only as and when Inspiration bade him; to keep silence when her voice was still? If indeed he had to play the part of Jester, could he be a daring one, heedless alike of frowns and smiles? Could he risk the cap and bells being taken from him? Could he bear hooting and derision?
 
 
“I will,” cried Peter to his soul. “I will jest how and as I please. Servant will I be to Inspiration alone, and slave to none. Away with cowardice, Peter, my son, and dismiss the many-headed public from your mind.”
 
It was therefore in an extremely healthy frame of mind that Peter approached the market-town.
 
The letter he had expected was awaiting him. He put it in his pocket unopened, for he knew it to be merely a business communication of no particular importance, and set off once more for home.
 
It was not till after his supper that he again thought of it, and he pulled it carelessly from his pocket. Within the envelope was the typewritten communication he had expected, and also a letter. It was addressed to Robin Adair, Esq., care of the publishers.
 
Peter turned the letter over curiously. The post-mark was London, the writing educated, delicately firm. He broke the seal and drew the letter from the envelope. Here is what he read:
 
“London.
 
“May 16th.
 
“This letter can have no formal beginning, [Pg 72]inasmuch as it is not written to a man, but to a personality—the personality that breathes through the book signed by Robin Adair. Nor, in spite of appearances, is it a letter from a woman, but from a personality as impersonal—if the contradiction may pass—as that to which it is addressed.
 
“And in the first place I am trusting that you—for impersonal as one may wish to be, one cannot dispense with pronouns—that you are possessed of sufficient intuition to discover that I am neither an autograph-hunter nor one desirous of snatching a sensation by stolen intercourse with a celebrity. I am not greatly flattering your intuitive powers therein; for nowhere is true personality so intimately revealed as in an intimate letter. Art can almost invariably be detected, and there is no fleshly mask to dazzle the perceptions and obscure the soul. An intelligent abstraction from a letter would probably give the truest image of the subjective side of any nature, which after all is the side with which as an individual one is concerned. If, therefore, after reading thus far, you are disposed to regard this letter as an impertinence, then it is one which is entirely without excuse, and I should desire you to tear it up forthwith.
 
 
“If, on the other hand, you have preserved an open mind so far, then I shall not attempt excuse, but furnish you with reasons. In fancy or in reality I have detected in your book, running through its sweetness and underlying all its strength, a great heart-cry for sympathy, the cry of a lonely soul. What it is that has wounded you I cannot tell, but I feel in every fibre that the wound is there.
 
“Now, I make you an offer—one of intimate comradeship with one of another sex, under conditions of such stringency as Plato’s self might have approved. I am a woman whom you have never seen, whom you will never see, of gentle birth, with a share at least of education and refinement, and, moreover, one who has been so profoundly moved and influenced by your writing that she feels with an extraordinary degree of confidence the existence of a mind-rapport between herself and you.
 
“For the moment that is enough. Should you wish to accept my offer, write to me at an address I shall subjoin, whence the letter will be forwarded to me. On your sid............