om us on the last dread journey. Miss Elmslie (who knows that
I am writing this) desires me to express her deep and lasting gratitude
for all your kindness to Alfred. She told me when we brought him back
that she had waited for him as his promised wife, and that she would
nurse him now as a wife should; and she never left him. His face was
turned toward her, his hand was clasped in hers when he died. It will
console you to know that he never mentioned events at Naples, or the
shipwreck that followed them, from the day of his return to the day of
his death."

Three days after reading the letter I was at Wincot, and heard all the
details of Alfred's last moments from the priest. I felt a shock which
it would not be very easy for me to analyze or explain when I heard that
he had been buried, at his own desire, in the fatal Abbey vault.

The priest took me down to see the place--a grim, cold, subterranean
building, with a low roof, supported on heavy Saxon arches. Narrow
niches, with the ends only of coffins visible within them, ran down each
side of the vault. The nails and silver ornaments flashed here and there
as my companion moved past them with a lamp in his hand. At the lower
end of the place he stopped, pointed to a niche, and said, "He lies
there, between his father and mother." I looked a little further on,
and saw what appeared at first like a long dark tunnel. "That is only an
empty niche," said the priest, following me. "If the body of Mr. Stephen
Monkton had been brought to Wincot, his coffin would have been placed
there."

A chill came over me, and a sense of dread which I am ashamed of having
felt now, but which I could not combat then. The blessed light of day
was pouring down gayly at the other end of the vault through the open
door. I turned my back on the empty niche, and hurried into the sunlight
and the fresh air.

As I walked across the grass glade leading down to the vault, I heard
the rustle of a woman's dress behind me, and turning round, saw a young
lady advancing, clad in deep mourning. Her sweet, sad face, her manner
as she held out her hand, told me who it was in an instant.

"I heard that you were here," she said, "and I wished--" Her voice
faltered a little. My heart ached as I saw how her lip trembled, but
before I could say anything she recovered herself and went on: "I wished
to take your hand, and thank you for your brotherly kindness to Alfred;
and I wanted to tell you that I am s