My testimony is at an end. A week has passed since Caroline and I awoke one morning to find our souls transposed. We are still confined to our rooms, suffering, our physician tells us, from acute nervous prostration. But "Richard's himself again!" When we recovered our senses--for Caroline had fainted at the moment when Yamama dissappeared from my sight--we found ourselves restored to our respective bodies; but the shock of our psychical interchange had left us physically weak and depressed.
I have not yet had the energy to compare notes with Caroline in regard to our uncanny experiences. But, fearing that my memory might play me false, I have relieved the tedium of my convalescence by jotting down the foregoing presentment, in the hope, as I have said before, that the data may prove of interest to minds more erudite than mine and my wife's.
Jenkins has returned from Hoboken--or wherever he went--and I have had him remove my beard. It had become a horror to me. Suzanne is very attentive to Caroline, and seems to have recovered her spirits.
One significant fact I have reserved for the last. It has caused me much uneasiness, not unmingled with a sense of relief. Jones has not been seen since the night of our weird dinner-party. No trace of him has been found. I have advertised for a butler, but have not yet received an application that appealed to me in my present supersensitive condition. What I want is a butler as unlike Jones as possible. Unfortunately, he was a pattern of his kind. But I hate the very thought of him, and so I shall drop my pen at this point and watch Suzanne and Caroline through the open door. I think I shall try to get down to the club to-morrow to see the boys.
II.
How Chopin Came to Remsen.
There cometh evil to my house,
And none of ye have wit to help me know
What the great gods portend sending me this.
THE LIGHT OF ASIA.
HOW CHOPIN CAME TO REMSEN.
CHAPTER I.
CHOPIN'S OPUS 47