…Soon after getting into bed one night (in January, 1908), I fell into a deep, blank sleep, from which I was abruptly torn to find myself at the entrance to a forest, a forest I knew, by sight, only too well. It was the forest of Trouble, and, willy-nilly, I had to enter it. On all sides, leviathan trees of the blackest ebony shot up hundreds of feet heavenwards, permitting only the feeblest rays of light to penetrate through their forked branches. What species of trees they were I do not know, for nothing I had seen outside my dreams resembled them. Their trunks were smooth, and in their mirror-like surfaces I could see reflected the workings of their innermost organs, whilst the rising and falling of their hollow voices was wafted down to me from on high, like the murmuring of wind from some mountain top. Nimble hands…

…or a ‘Tec?”I see I must explain myself,” she said, pulling out a chair from the table and sitting down.”Though I’m living in a big house in Park Lane, Mr. Bailey, I’m a poor woman. My husband has all the money, and not I.” “That doesn’t sound quite fair, ma’am,” I muttered, not knowing exactly what other remark to make.”Fair! Of course it isn’t fair!” she snapped. “Nothing is fair, is it? But come, I’m not here to expatiate on injustice. Have you ever been hard up, Mr. Bailey? You have. Good! Then you can sympathise with me. I am hard up— so hard up that I am anxious to sell my diamonds — a wedding present from my husband — and, being a wedding present and positively the only present he has ever given me, you can understand my difficulty. In short, I want to sell it, but dare…