se it is what you will be calling her
soon. Strange, how that small fact seems to place her' Fancy my
marrying someone whom you would naturally call "Mrs. Spence"? There are
such people. All Aunt Caroline's young friends are like that. You would
say, "I have looked forward to meeting you, Mrs. Spence," and she would
giggle and say, "Oh, Dr. Rogers, I have heard my husband speak of you
so often!" But Desire will say, "So this is John." And then she will
look at you with that detached yet interested look and you will find
yourself saying "Desire" before you think of it. You see, she belongs.

But before I bring you up to date with regard to recent events, I had
better tell you a few facts about my more remote past. I refer to Mary.
I have already told you that I found a past necessary. At that time I
hoped that something fairly abstract would do. But Desire does not like
abstractions. She likes to "know where she is." So I had to tell her
about Mary. I'll tell you, too, before I forget details and for
heaven's sake get them right! You never can tell when your knowledge
may be needed. In the first place there is the name. I'm rather proud
of that. I had to choose it at a moment's notice and I did not
hesitate. Desire herself says it is a lovely name. And so safe--amn't I
right in the impression that every second girl in Bainbridge and
elsewhere is called Mary? Mary, my Mary, might be anybody.

Here, then, are the main facts. I have had (pre-war) a serious
attachment. It was an affection tragically misplaced. She did not love
me. She loved another. She may, or may not, have married him. (It would
have been better to have had the marriage certain, but I didn't see it
in time.) I will never care for another woman. Her name was Mary.
Please tabulate this romance where you can put your hand on it. I may
need your help at any time. As a doctor your aid would be invaluable
should it become necessary for Mary to decease.

And now to leave romance for reality. Your long and lucid discourse on
masked epilepsy was most helpful. It was almost as informing as Li Ho's
diagnosis of "moon-devil." Both have the merit of leaving the inquirer
with an open mind. However--let's get on. If you have had my later
letters you will know that circumstances indicated an elopement. But
the more I thought of eloping, the more I disliked the idea. My father
was not a man who would have eloped. And, in spite of Aunt Caroline's
lobsters and lemons, I am