There can be little doubt that shortly after this the volcanic rock subsided and vanished off the surface of the sea, after the usual manner of these desperate creations. The editor of the naval journal received several copies of logs kept by ships which had traversed the part of the ocean where the island had sprung up, and it was gathered, after a careful comparison of these memoranda, that the rock must have disappeared very shortly after Dowling and Head had been taken off it, for the log-book of a vessel named the ‘Martha Robinson’ showed that three days later she had passed over the exact spot where the island had stood and all was clear sea.

My time of waiting for the hand of Laura was not to prove so long as I had feared. Very unexpectedly one morning I received a letter from my darling from the Abbey. Her father had arrived on the preceding day. She could scarcely believe her ears when a servant came to tell her that Mr. Jennings had called and was waiting to see her. Of course he had not received her letter. He had taken it into his head to visit England, both his daughters being there, mainly with the intention of taking Laura back with him when he returned. He was almost broken-hearted, so Laura wrote, when she told him about Lady Monson. However, he was in England, and after waiting a few days so as to give him time to recover the dreadful shock caused him by the news of his daughter’s behaviour, I went down to Westmoreland, was introduced to the old gentleman, and found him a bluff, hearty, plain-spoken man. He told me he could settle twenty thousand pounds upon his child, and seemed very well satisfied to hear that I was not without a pretty little income of my own. He approached the subject of insanity with a bluntness that somewhat disconcerted me. I assured him that so far as I could possibly imagine I was not mad, that my cousin’s craziness came from a source which did not concern me in the least degree. He was pleased afterwards to tell Laura that he could see by my eye that my intellect was as sound as a bell; an observation upon which I thought I had some right to compliment myself, for to be suspected of being ‘wanting’ is often to involuntarily and unconsciously look so, and I must say that whilst Mr. Jennings and I talked about Wilfrid’s craziness and where it came from, he regarded me with a keenness that was at times not a little embarrassing.

Laura and I had been married two years when we heard of Lady Monson. Mr. Jennings had returned to Australia, but in one or two letters we had received from him he never mentioned Henrietta’s name. Then came a missive in deep mourning. Lady Monson was dead. She had been received into the Roman Catholic Church, so wrote the father in a letter whose every sentence seemed as though he wrote with a pen dipped in his tears. She had, apparently, given up all thoughts of this world and devoted her days and nights to ministering to the poor. One day she returned to her home looking ill; two nights later she was delirious. She broke from the grasp of her attendants and marched with stately step, singing in her rich contralto voice as she went, to an upper chamber that had been Laura’s bedroom, where, planting herself before a mirror, she fell to brushing her rich and beautiful hair, singing all the while, till on a sudden she fell with a shriek to the ground, was carried back to her bed, and two hours later lay a corpse.

THE END.

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Transcriber's Note

The following apparent errors have been corrected:

Inconsistent spelling, hyphenation and punctuation have otherwise been kept as printed.