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And now for a few parting words of explanation. O's memo, which produced such disastrous results and a most unique qui proquo, was written on the 27th. On the night of the 25th, my beloved Brother told me, that having heard Mr. Hume say in H.P.B.'s room that he had never himself heard O. state to him that, he, O., had personally seen us, and also had heard add, that were Olcott to tell him so, he had confidence enough in the man to believe in what he said, — he, K.H. thought of asking me to go and tell O. to do so; believing it might please Mr. Hume to learn some of the details. K.H. wishes are — law to me. And that is why Mr. Hume received that letter from O., at a time when his doubts were already settled. At the same time as I delivered my message to O., I satisfied his curiosity as to your Society and told what I thought of it. O. asked my permission to send to you these notes which I accorded. Now, that is the whole secret. For reasons of my own I desired you should know what I thought of the situation, a few hours after my beloved Brother, went out of this world. When the letter reached you my feelings were somewhat changed and I altered, as said before, the memo a good deal. As O's style had made me laugh, I added my postcriptum which related solely to Olcott, but was nevertheless applied wholly by Mr. Hume to himself!

Let us drop it. I close the longest letter I have ever written in my life; but as I do it for K.H. — I am satisfied. Though Mr. Hume may not think it, the "mark of the adept" is kept at -— —— not at Simla, and I try to keep up to it, however poor I may be as a writer and a correspondent.

M.