in the end, things must go as they are
fated.

"Mr. Monk is engaged to a Miss Porson. He told me that in the boat. I
asked him what he was thinking of when we nearly over-set against that
dreadful rock. He answered that he could only think of the song he had
heard me singing on the ship, which I considered a great compliment
to my voice, quite the nicest I ever had. But he ought to have been
thinking about the lady to whom he is engaged, and he understood that
I thought so, which I daresay I should not have allowed him to do.
However, when people believe that they are going to be drowned they grow
confidential, and expose their minds freely. He exposed his when he told
me that he thought I was talking egregious nonsense, and I am afraid
that I laughed at him. I don't think that he really can love her--that
is, as engaged people are supposed to love each other. If he did he
would not have grown so angry--with himself--and then turned upon me
because the recollection of my old death song had interfered with the
reflections which he ought to have offered upon her altar. That is what
struck me as odd; not his neglecting to remember her in a moment of
danger, since then we often forget everything except some triviality
of the hour. But, of course, this is all nonsense, which I oughtn't to
write here even, as most people have their own ways of being fond of
each other. Also, it is no affair of mine.

"I have seen Miss Porson's photograph, a large one of her in Court
dress, which stands in Mr. Monk's laboratory (such a lovely place,
it was an old chapel). She is a beautiful woman; large and soft and
regal-looking, a very woman; it would be difficult to imagine a better
specimen of 'the eternal feminine.' Also, they say, that is, the nurse
who is looking after my father says, that she is very rich and devoted
to 'Mr. Morris.' So Mr. Morris is a lucky man. I wonder why he didn't
save her from a shipwreck instead of me. It would have given an
appropriate touch of romance to the affair, which is now entirely wasted
upon a young person, if I may still call myself so, with whom it has no
concern.

"What interests me more than our host's matrimonial engagements,
however, are his experiments with aerophones. That is a wonderful
invention if only it can be made to work without fail upon all
occasions. I do wish that I could help him there. It would be some
return for his great kindness, for it must be a dreadful nuisance to
have an