he would reiterate, grasping it, too, on the impulse, as a
means to put off the ordeal. 'In the dark,--later in the
dark', he would tell her everything. But there is no time to
be lost if a public scandal is to be averted. The worst must
be known at once. The chief friend of them all is there. It
is he who is to fight hardest to save them. He knows the
house well, and besides he has seen that very evening, after
dinner, the lights turned on by the servant with the electric
lever. He stands beside this lever. He quickly seizes the
last sentence of the cornered guilty man, and, before the
latter can think or retract, cries: 'Tell it in the dark,
then!' and plunges the room in darkness. The natural impulse
of that defaulter under those circumstances would be to blurt
out with it; at least so I believe. Such was his vacillating,
impulsive nature. And for the same reason the attempt to
escape in the dark, which was silly, futile! It was another
sudden impulse; had it been otherwise, he was far too
sensible to have tried it. I developed that scene by taking
the place mentally, or trying to, of each one of the persons
engaged in it. I did not start with the so-called 'dark
scene'. I had no idea I was going to do what I did until I
reached the moment in my writing when it had to be done--at
least done that way or not at all. As it occurred to me, so
it would have occurred to the friend in the play. And so it
did! And knowing this evolution of the scene, I cannot think
myself that it was 'a theatrical trick'. In all cases I try
to paint my personages from the inside instead of the out,
and to cling to human nature as both my starting-point and my
goal. This is what I want to do and am trying to do--in a
sentence--to tell the Truth in the Theatre. I am trying
honestly, and my heart is in it. That's all, except that I am
glad of your belief in me.

This frankness and sincerity were typical of Fitch's correspondence
with everyone who took him seriously. He went to every pains to
explain himself, and no man more gratefully acknowledged earnest
attention. It was his quickness to detect in others the spark of
creative appreciation that made him answer letters to perfect
strangers, giving them advice as to playwriting. "I like the tone of
that man's note," he once said to me. "I'll send for him; he may be a
goo