aited and watched to see
the brig sink; still and silent, even when that sinking happened, when
the laboring hull plunged slowly into a hollow of the sea--hesitated,
as it seemed, for one moment, rose a little again, then sank to rise no
more.

Sank with her dead freight--sank, and snatched forever from our
power the corpse which we had discovered almost by a miracle--those
jealously-preserved remains, on the safe-keeping of which rested so
strangely the hopes and the love-destinies of two living beings! As the
last signs of the ship in the depths of the waters.

I felt Monkton trembling all over as he sat close at my side, and heard
him repeating to himself, sadly, and many times over, the name of "Ada."

I tried to turn his thoughts to another subject, but it was useless. He
pointed over the sea to where the brig had once been, and where nothing
was left to look at but the rolling waves.

"The empty place will now remain empty forever in Wincot vault."

As he said these words, he fixed his eyes for a moment sadly and
earnestly on my face, then looked away, leaned his cheek on his hand,
and spoke no more.

We were sighted long before nightfall by a trading vessel, were taken on
board, and landed at Cartagena in Spain. Alfred never held up his head,
and never once spoke to me of his own accord the whole time we were at
sea in the merchantman. I observed, however, with alarm, that he talked
often and incoherently to himself--constantly muttering the lines of the
old prophecy--constantly referring to the fatal place that was empty in
Wincot vault--constantly repeating in broken accents, which it affected
me inexpressibly to hear, the name of the poor girl who was awaiting his
return to England. Nor were these the only causes for the apprehension
that I now felt on his account. Toward the end of our voyage he began
to suffer from alternations of fever-fits and shivering-fits, which I
ignorantly imagined to be attacks of ague. I was soon undeceived. We had
hardly been a day on shore before he became so much worse that I secured
the best medical assistance Cartagena could afford. For a day or two the
doctors differed, as usual, about the nature of his complaint, but ere
long alarming symptoms displayed themselves. The medical men declared
that his life was in danger, and told me that his disease was brain
fever.

Shocked and grieved as I was, I hardly knew how to act at first under
the fresh responsibility now laid