The mind of the reader fills up the blanks,--if erroneously, still satisfactorily.

He knows, at least, that the heroine has encountered a terrible danger, and has escaped from it with almost incredible good fortune; that the demon of the piece is a bold demon, not ashamed to speak of his own iniquity, and that the heroine and the demon are so far united that they have been in a garret together.

But there is the drawback on the system,--that it is almost impossible to avoid the necessity of doing, sooner or later, that which would naturally be done at first.

It answers, perhaps, for half-a-dozen chapters;--and to carry the reader pleasantly for half-a-dozen chapters is a great matter!--but after that a certain nebulous darkness gradually seems to envelope the characters and the incidents.

"Is all this going on in the country, or is it in town,--or perhaps in the Colonies?
How old was she?
Was she tall?
Is she fair?
Is she heroine-like in her form and gait?
And, after all, how high was the garret window ?" I have always found that the details would insist on being told at last, and that by rushing "in medias res" I was simply presenting the cart before the horse.