PREFACE
Reading edition
In earlier days a preface to a novel with no direct historical source always seemed to me somewhat out of place, since I believed that the author could be indebted solely to his own imagination. I have learned, however, that even in a novel pur sang it is possible to owe much to others, and I now take the opportunity which the despised preface offers to pay my debt—inadequately it is true—to Mr. Hughes Massie, whose enthusiastic help in the launching of this, my first serious literary effort, I shall always hold in grateful remembrance.
I. A. R. W.
May 9th, 1910