powder and shot and fishing-tackle. Here's a note. He says first read it
and then seal it and send it to his aunt." It read:

_"Don't look for me. You can't find me. I'm not going to kill or hurt
myself, and I'll report again in a month."_

I delivered it in person on my way uptown, advising his kinswoman to trust
him on his own terms and hope for the best. Privately, of course, I was
distressed, and did not become less so when, on reaching home, Mrs. Smith
told me that he had been there and borrowed an arm-load of books, saying
he might return some of them in a month, but would probably keep others
for two. So he did; and one evening, when he brought the last of them
back, he told us fully, spiritual experiences and all, what had occurred
to him in the interval.

The sale of the schooner had paid its debt and left him some cash over.
Better yet, it had saved Sweetheart. On the day of his disappearance she
was lying at the head of the New Basin, distant but a few minutes' walk
from the spot where we met and talked. When he left me he went there. At
the stores thereabout he bought a new hatchet and axe, an extra water-keg
or two, and a month's provisions. He filled all the kegs, stowed
everything aboard, and by the time the afternoon had half waned was
rippling down the New Canal under mule-tow with a strong lake breeze in
his face.

At the lake (Pontchartrain), as the tow-line was cast off, he hoisted
sail, and, skimming out by lighthouse and breakwater, tripped away toward
Pointe-aux-Herbes and the eastern skyline beyond, he and Sweetheart alone,
his hand clasping hers--the tiller, that is--hour by hour, and the small
waves tiptoeing to kiss her southern cheek as she leaned the other away