TO THE READER
Here then, do I end this book, because this is the Book of Diana andshe is gone out of my life.
So do I lay down my pen for a while, uneasily conscious of mynarrative's many imperfections and greatly fearing that I have fallenvery far short in my description of Diana.
But what work of man may hope to be utterly perfect? And who shallrecapture the vanished glory of the dream?
Here, then, do I let fall the curtain; when it rises, the world and Ishall be two years older, two years wiser, two years better, or theworse.
_Book Two_
SHADOW