Keep me informed. If you need me, cable. I'll come if I have to
swim."

His last words; and not a year ago. It seems now like a lifetime.
As I stood upon the pier and watched the ship slipping into the
water, I felt it coming upon me. It had grown steadily, a gloom
and oppression not to be thwarted; it is silent and subtle and
past defining--like shadow. The grey, heavy heave of the water;
the great hull of the steamer backing into the bay; the gloom of
the fog bank. A few uncertain lines, the shrill of the siren, the
mist settling; I was alone. It was isolation.

I had been warned by Watson. But I had not guessed. At the moment
I sensed it. It was the beginning. Out of my heart I could feel
it--solitude.

In the great and populous city I was to be alone, in all its
teeming life I was to be a stranger. It has been almost a year--a
year! It has been a lifetime. A breaking down of life!

I have waited and fought and sought to conquer. One cannot fight
against shadow. It is merciless and inexorable. There are secrets
that may be locked forever. It was my duty, my pledge to Watson,
what I owed to the professor. I have hung on grimly; what the end
will be I do not know. I have cabled for Fenton.




XII