For fifteen years he had climbed the hill and gazed beyond the reef-girt shore at the broad sea in the vain hope of descrying a sail.

He always heaved a sigh of disappointment when he swept the sailless ocean with his glass.
One morning when he had made his fruitless pilgrimage to his point of observation, he sat down upon a stone and, passing his hand over his eyes, brushed away a tear which came unbidden there.
"Alas, I am doomed to pass my life here.

Never more can I see my home, friends or kindred; but on this desolate shore I must end my existence.
Fifteen years have come and gone--fifteen long years since I left my home.

My wife, no doubt, believing me dead, has ceased to mourn for me.
Perhaps--but no, Dorothe never believed in it.

God knows what they may have suffered.