d! I am already dead."

She seemed to struggle against some force that battled with her, and the
roar of many waters was louder around us before she was able to speak
again.

"Bend lower, Arthur; my strength is failing, and I have not yet said
that for which I am here. Lower still.

"I said it is all a mistake--a hideous mistake. Existence as we know it
is ephemeral. Suffering is ephemeral. There is nothing everlasting but
love. There is nothing eternal but mind. Your mind is mine. Your love is
mine. Your human life may belong to whomsoever you will it. It ought to
belong to that brave girl below. I do not grudge it to her, for I have
_you_. We two shall be together through the ages--for ever and for ever.
Heart of my heart, you have striven manfully and well, and if you did
not altogether succeed in saving my flesh from premature corruption, be
satisfied in that you have my soul. Ah!"

She pressed her hands to her head as if in dreadful pain. When she spoke
again her voice came in short gasps.

"My brain is reeling. I do not know what I am saying," she cried,
distraught. "I do not know whether I am saying what is true or only what
I imagine to be true. I know nothing but this. I was mesmerised. I have
been so for two years. But for that I would have been happy in your
love--for I was a woman before this hideous influence benumbed me. They
told me it was only a fool's paradise that I missed. But I only know
that I have missed it. Missed it--and the darkness of death is upon me."

She ceased to speak. A shudder convulsed her, and then her head sank
gently on my shoulder.

At that moment the great wave broke over the vessel, whirling her
helpless like a cork on the ripples of a mill pond; lashing her with
mighty strokes; sweeping in giant cataracts from stern to stem;
smashing, tearing everything; deluging her with hissing torrents;
crushing her with avalanches of raging foam. Then the ocean tornado
passed on and left the _Esmeralda_ behind, with half the crew disabled
and many lost, her decks a mass of wreckage, her masts gone. The
crippled ship barely floated. When the last torrent of spray passed, and
I was able to look to Natalie, her head had drooped down on her breast.
I raised her face gently and looked into her wide open eyes.

She was dead.

CHAPTER XX.

CONCLUSION.

Taking up my girl's body in my arms, I stumbled over the
wreck-encumbered deck, and bore it to the state-room she had occupied