Stahlmann’s frenzied exertions could not call back the departed spirit, and he sat gazing wildly upon it in his bitter disappointment. Then a startling thought broke suddenly into his mind—What, out in his desolate and watery home, could he do with the dead? Where could he put the stiffened corpse? But as the night came on, he arose to light the beacon; then descended again immediately, taking up his former position by the lifeless form, for it appeared to exert a peculiar fascination over him; he felt a strange kind of pleasure in the presence of the form of a human being, even though it were dead. He seemed to have found a companion, and the thought, which had startled him at first died from his memory. Hour after hour as he sat beside the corpse; its strange influence increased, until it gradually filled up in his troubled heart the aching void which had so yearned for society. He left it only as necessity called him away to attend to his duties, each time returning with increasing haste. Day by day the spell continued, and he grew to regard the dead body with all the tenderness he would have manifested toward a living brother. He did not shrink from the cold, clammy skin when he raised the head to place it on a stool, but sat and talked to it. He asked why it looked at him with that stony glare, and why its face had turned that dark and ugly color; but when no answer came, he said he realized that it was dead and could not speak. Then the terrible truth flashed upon him. With a groan he saw that he could keep the corpse no longer, and the thought which had startled him once before crept in again with increased significance. Where could he bury it? In the bottom of the lake, where nothing would disturb its peace. He gently let it down into the water, and, as he saw it disappear, he awoke to wild grief at losing it, and would have plunged in to rescue it the second time, but it was gone from sight forever. Might not this body have been one of the lost from the ill-fated Sea Bird, which burned in the beginning of April, 1868, a few miles north of the city? Stahlmann must have found it about this time. His grief for the loss of his dead companion grew upon him each day, and rendered the solitude more unendurable. Solitude? It was no longer solitude, for the place was peopled by the phantom creations of his inflamed imagination. Here a part of the diary is altogether incoherent, showing into what utter confusion his intellect had been thrown.