"'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.

The next day the storm was unabated. Throckmartin came to me at
lunch. He had regained much of his old alertness.

"Come to my cabin," he said. There, he stripped his shirt from him.
"Something is happening," he said. "The mark is smaller." It was as he
said.

"I'm escaping," he whispered jubilantly, "Just let me get to Melbourne
safely, and then we'll see who'll win! For, Walter, I'm not at all
sure that Edith is dead--as we know death--nor that the others are.
There is something outside experience there--some great mystery."

And all that day he talked to me of his plans.

"There's a natural explanation, of course," he said. "My theory is