and I remember that early copies of it came
simultaneously to myself and Grant Allen, with whom I was then staying,
and how we were both somewhat _intrigue_ by a certain air of mystery
which seemed to attach to the little volume. We were both intimate
friends of William Sharp, but I was better acquainted with Sharp's
earlier poetry than Grant Allen, and it was my detection in _Pharais_
of one or two subtly observed natural images, the use of which had
previously struck me in one of his _Romantic Ballads and Poems of
Phantasy_, that brought to my mind in a flash of understanding that
Rudgwick conversation with Mrs. Sharp, and thus made me doubly certain
that "Fiona Macleod" and William Sharp were one, if not the same.
Conceiving no reason for secrecy, and only too happy to find that my
friend had fulfilled his wife's prophecy by such fuller and finer
expression of himself, I stated my belief as to its authorship in a
review I wrote for the London _Star_. My review brought me an urgent
telegram from Sharp, begging me, for God's sake, to shut my mouth--or
words to that effect. Needless to say, I did my best to atone for
having thus put my foot in it, by a subsequent severe silence till
now unbroken; though I was often hard driven by curious inquirers to
preserve the secret which my friend afterwards confided to me.

When I say "confided to me," I must add that in the many confidences
William Sharp made to me on the matter, I was always aware of a reserve
of fanciful mystification, and I am by no means sure, even now, that I,
or any of us--with the possible exception of Mrs. Sharp--know the whole
truth about "Fiona Macleod." Indeed it is clear from Mrs. Sharp's
interesting revelations of her husband's temperament that "the whole
truth" could hardly be known even to William Sharp himself; for, very
evidently in "Fiona Macleod" we have to deal not merely with a literary
mystification, but with a psychological mystery. Here it is pertinent to
quote the message written to be delivered to certain of his friends
after his death: "This will reach you," he says, "after my death. You
will think I have wholly deceived you about Fiona Macleod. But, in an
intimate sense this is not so, though (and inevitably) in certain
details I have misled you. Only, it is a mystery. I cannot explain.
Perhaps you will intuitively understand or may come to understand. 'The
rest is silence.' Farewell. WILLIAM SHARP."

"It is only right, however, to ad