When pressed by adventurous questioners,
some of these allies gave answers which might have served for models in
the art of diplomacy. So Sharp wrote on, openly as William Sharp, and
secretly as Fiona Macleod. Letters had to reach Fiona somehow, and so it
was given out that she was his cousin, and that letters sent to him
would be safely passed on to her. If, however, it was difficult to keep
the secret from the public, it was still more difficult for one man to
maintain two distinct personalities. William Sharp of course had to
live, while Fiona might die any day. Her life entailed upon him another
burden, not of personification only, but of subject and research, and he
was driven to sore passes to keep both himself and her alive. For each
was truly alive and individual--two distinct people, one of whom thought
of the other as if she were "asleep in another room." Even the double
correspondence was a severe burden and strain, for Fiona Macleod had her
own large post-bag which had to be answered, just as William Sharp had
his. But far beyond any such outward expressions of themselves as these,
the difficulty of the double personality lay in deep springs of
character and of taste.
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