when
Science had perhaps not obtained so tight a grip upon me as she now has,
it was my fate to meet the loveliest woman I have ever beheld. She was
an only daughter, of English parentage; and chance threw us somewhat
more intimately together than is usual with people who become acquainted
casually and informally. I fell blindly, madly in love with this
peerless creature; and, gentlemen, I have since--and alas, too late!--
had reason to believe that, strange as such a circumstance may appear to
you, she did not altogether escape a reciprocal passion. But my
studious habits had brought with them one serious disadvantage--I was
indescribably diffident and shy; so much so that when the time arrived
that I must either unbosom myself or let her pass away out of my life,
perhaps for ever, I found myself without the courage to make the
necessary declaration. We parted without a word of love having passed
between us. She remained single for five years--to give me an
opportunity of declaring myself, as I now know--and then married a man
far more worthy of her than I could ever have proved. Gentlemen, her
only child, a lad of fifteen, went down with the ill-fated _Daedalus_;
and the mother is to-day breaking her heart because, by some perverse
chance, she does not possess a single memento of her lost boy. My visit
to the wreck, however, will remove that source of grief; for I shall
have the melancholy satisfaction of transmitting to the dear lady, by
the first safe conveyance which offers itself, the watch and chain and
the signet-ring which he wore when he bade her a final farewell. In the
moment that I conquered the last difficulty connected with the
construction of this ship, and felt assured that she would prove a
success, I vowed to myself that, by the courtesy of our amiable host, I
would avail myself of the means she would offer for securing some
memento of that poor lad; and I have to-day at once performed my vow and
passed through scenes of such surpassing horror as probably no mortal
has ever witnessed before, and which language has no words to describe.

"The third object of my visit to the wreck is before you in the shape of
yonder package. It is a manuscript book filled with jottings and
memoranda, the result of some thirty years of profound research in the
many bypaths of science. It was the property of an officer of the ship
with whom I had corresponded for many years; and, knowing how greatly I
coveted t