The day was at last fixed.  Miss Dodan, young, appreciative, and curious, was elated at the prospect of the voyage, and, momentarily, at least, forgot her first reluctance to desert me.  The preparations were all completed.  I need not dwell upon all the detail of that last week.  It was a cruel ordeal for me, but no one would have suspected my real anguish.  I seemed the most thoughtful of all, the most naturally buoyant and hopeful for the success of the trip.  I forgot nothing.  The telegraph station was not, however, neglected.  I watched at night, and during the hours of my absence my assistant was persistently present in the tower.

At last the steamer sailed away from the wharf at Port Littelton.  The last moments I passed alone with Miss Dodan were sacred, sweet memories; all that I have now.

Mr. and Mrs. Dodan and Miss Dodan were waving their handkerchiefs from the deck as I turned sorrowfully back to Christ Church.  I realized that I had seen Miss Dodan for the last time, and that when she returned to New Zealand, she would only find me gone.  There was but one duty now.  To resume, if possible, the communications with my father, and prepare the story of my experience and discoveries, and leave it to the world.

I went back to the Observatory.  I was again alone.  A reaction of despondency overwhelmed me, and it was coincident with a hemorrhage, which left me weak and nervous.  I resumed my watching at the station.  I seemed to anticipate a new message.  I endured peculiar and excruciating excitement, a tense suspense of desire and prevision that deprived me of appetite and sleep, and accelerated the ravages of the disease, that now, victorious over my weakened, nervous force, began the last stages of its devastating advance.

It was a clear, cold night of exquisite severity and beauty—­May 20, 1894, that the third message came from my father.  It was announced, as had been all the others, by the sudden response of the Morse receiver.  A few nights before, grasping at a vague hope that I might again reach him with the magnetic waves at my command, I had launched into space the single sentence:  “Await me!  Death is very near.”  The message that now startled my ears began with an exact answer to that trans-abysmal despatch: 

“My son, the thought of your death fills me with happiness.  Surely you will come to this wonderful and unspeakable world, you will see me again, and I you, but under such new circumstances!  My heart yearns for you immeasurably.  Come!  Come quickly!  To press you to my heart, to speak with you, to teach you the new things, and Oh! more than all, to bring you to your mother.  For, Tony, she is found; my search is ended.  I have discovered her whom the cruel mystery of Death on earth so sharply removed from us, in youth and radiance.  I have not yet revealed myself.  The joy of anticipation surpasses thought or words.  I have hastened back from seeing her, whom to leave in this paradise imparts the one pang I have known in this new life, hastened again to the Hill of Observation that now looks on the cruel ruin, the emptiness of desolation, where once was the City of Scandor.  Let me tell you all: