“I dragged myself to the brink. Far down was a shining, many-coloured nebulous cloud descending; out of it peered Edith’s face, disappearing; her eyes stared up at me⁠—and she vanished!

“ ‘Edith!’ I cried again. ‘Edith, come back to me!’

“And then a darkness fell upon me. I remember running back through the shimmering corridors and out into the courtyard. Reason had left me. When it returned I was far out at sea in our boat wholly estranged from civilization. A day later I was picked up by the schooner in which I came to Port Moresby.

“I have formed a plan; you must hear it, Goodwin⁠—” He fell upon his berth. I bent over him. Exhaustion and the relief of telling his story had been too much for him. He slept like the dead.

All that night I watched over him. When dawn broke I went to my room to get a little sleep myself. But my slumber was haunted.