THE ANGELS OF MONS
and clouds and bewilders his intelligence, and the real story of "The Soldiers' Rest," with its "sonus epulantium in æterno convivio," died at the moment of its birth, and it was some time later that the actual story, as here printed, got written. And in the meantime the plot of "The Bowmen" occurred to me. Now it has been murmured and hinted and suggested and whispered in all sorts of quarters that before I wrote the tale I had heard something. The most decorative of these legends is also the most precise: "I know for a fact that the whole thing was given him in typescript by a lady-in-waiting." This was not the case; and all vaguer reports to the effect that I had heard some rumours or hints of rumours are equally void of any trace of truth. I wrote thus far in the Introduction to the first edition of "The Bowmen." I am sorry to say that some
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