When grown up the young man accepts an offer from a prosperous kinsman in the West Indies to join him in his business.

His beloved sees him depart with many misgivings, though their mutual devotion was never to fade.

She does not see him again for forty years, when he returns, like Arden, to his "native bay," "A worn-out man with wither'd limbs and lame, His mind oppress'd with woes, and bent with age his frame." He finds his old love, who had been faithful to her engagement for ten years, and then (believing Allen to be dead) had married.

She is now a widow, with grown-up children scattered through the world, and is alone.

Allen then tells his sad story.