The ghost settles down in the chair opposite you. It begins, "It was a dark and stormy night, and Alan looked out the window and cringed at the thought of leaving the house that night. He was worried about the walk to the train station. But he knew that it was important to reach his fiancée before noon the next day, lest she make the wrong decision and lose the inheritance they both were depending on. He dressed warmly and left the house. The wind and rain pelted him, but he took the risk and after a painful hour he reached the station. The train, though, was late, and he was afraid for his fiancée, for he knew she was in danger of listening to her selfish brother's bad advice. As he sat in the waiting room, a strange woman came up to him and said, "You must help me; let me tell you my story."

Alan agrees to hear her story.

Alan refuses to hear her story.

We thought about having these sub-stories more explicitly echo the main story.

That would have reforced our theme of levels. But it would have made the little story too complicated, given the ADVENTURE mix already present.

Reader, have you seen that yet?

So we decided to just mention the possibility here.

That's one of those authorial decisions in our own meta-story.