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Updated: June 20, 2025
"Miss Dodan," I began, fearful to use her first name through a reluctance that was itself the expression of the deep love I bore her, "Miss Dodan, I may for some time yet be engaged in this now imperative work. I cannot, you know, now leave it. It is the most marvellous thing the world has ever known. It means so much to me, indeed to us all. These messages are erratic fitful.
At length, by a week's nursing, during which Miss Dodan and myself were frequently together, becoming more and more attached to each other, my father renewed his wonted studies, and strongly desired to return to the "plateau." I almost regretted, harsh as the thought may seem, our return.
Dodan had been carefully nursing in his daughter a desire to see England and the Queen, and her own little birthplace, and that he had formed a resolution to separate us, for his daughter's best interests, as he thought. I suffered from a very proud, sensitive nature, perhaps unwholesomely intensified by the lonely life I had led, and a peculiar sense of my difference from other people.
I was coming out of my room when I found Miss Dodan also emerging from her own bedroom at the opposite end of an upper hall. We met and I said: "Miss Dodan, it is a treacherous confession, but I wish you were going back with us, or that my father would stay a little longer here. I shall miss you." "Yes," she answered. "Aren't you a good nurse?"
An incident occurred that dissipated this dilemma, sent Miss Dodan to England, and left me at Christ Church to receive the last message from my father before the sickness had fully developed that now has laid its searching and remorseless veto upon any further life or happiness for me in this world.
Miss Dodan and myself were seated together upon a bench drawn up in the sunshine at the foot of the Observatory, watching with delight the distinct changing sea, the plumes of smoke from diminished steamers, and the white glory of full-rigged ships.
Miss Dodan sat near the wide window looking toward Christ Church and the quickly descending road over which only a few days ago my father had journeyed. I caught in her face, as I entered, an anxious and disturbed glance, and I felt almost instantly an intimation of disaster. She turned to me as I came into the room and with a quick movement advanced. "Mr. Dodd, your father is ill.
I felt I ought not to have revealed this thing to Miss Dodan, and when in the first impulse of confidence everything so unwittingly passed my lips, I took her arm in mine and walked out upon the broad plateau toward the opposite end where our smaller experimenting station had been built. "Miss Dodan," I said, "I am going to ask a great favor of you."
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.
Dodan need not be disturbed as to my absolute self-control. The very acerbity of my coming misery, through Miss Dodan's absence, fully realized by me, seemed now only to add a desperation of assumed indifference and gayety to all my actions. I argued against delay, and dwelt with excellent effect upon the charms of the visit.
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