He was gloomy,
      even beyond his usual habit—in fact he was morose—but in him I
      was prepared for eccentricity. For the sisters, however, I could
      make no excuse. They secluded themselves in their staterooms
      during the greater part of the passage, and absolutely refused,
      although I repeatedly urged them, to hold communication with any
      person on board. Mrs. Wyatt herself was far more agreeable. That is to say, she
      was chatty; and to be chatty is no slight recommendation at sea. She became excessively intimate with most of the ladies; and, to
      my profound astonishment, evinced no equivocal disposition to
      coquet with the men. She amused us all very much. I say
      “amused”—and scarcely know how to explain myself. The truth is, I
      soon found that Mrs. W. was far oftener laughed at than with. The
      gentlemen said little about her; but the ladies, in a little
      while, pronounced her “a good-hearted thing, rather indifferent
      looking, totally uneducated, and decidedly vulgar.” The great
      wonder was, how Wyatt had been entrapped into such a match. Wealth was the general solution—but this I knew to be no solution
      at all; for Wyatt had told me that she neither brought him a
      dollar nor had any expectations from any source whatever. “He had
      married,” he said, “for love, and for love only; and his bride
      was far more than worthy of his love.” When I thought of these
      expressions, on the part of my friend, I confess that I felt
      indescribably puzzled. Could it be possible that he was taking
      leave of his senses? What else could I think? He, so refined, so
      intellectual, so fastidious, with so exquisite a perception of
      the faulty, and so keen an appreciation of the beautiful! To be
      sure, the lady seemed especially fond of him—particularly so in
      his absence—when she made herself ridiculous by frequent
      quotations of what had been said by her “beloved husband, Mr.
      Wyatt.” The word “husband” seemed forever—to use one of her own
      delicate expressions—forever “on the tip of her tongue.” In the
      meantime, it was observed by all on board, that he avoided her in
      the most pointed manner, and, for the most part, shut himself up
      alone in his state-room, where, in fact, he might have been said
      to live altogether, leaving his wife at full liberty to amuse
      herself as she thought best, in the public society of the main
      cabin. My conclusion, from what I saw and heard, was, that, the artist,
      by some unaccountable freak of fate, or perhaps in some fit of
      enthusiastic and fanciful passion, had been induced to unite
      himself with a person altogether beneath him, and that the
      natural result, entire and speedy disgust, had ensued. I pitied
      him from the bottom of my heart—but could not, for that reason,
      quite forgive his incommunicativeness in the matter of the “Last
      Supper.” For this I resolved to have my revenge. One day he came upon deck, and, taking his arm as had been my
      wont, I sauntered with him backward and forward. His gloom,
      however (which I considered quite natural under the
      circumstances), seemed entirely unabated. He said little, and
      that moodily, and with evident effort. I ventured a jest or two,
      and he made a sickening attempt at a smile. Poor fellow!—as I
      thought of his wife, I wondered that he could have heart to put
      on even the semblance of mirth. I determined to commence a series
      of covert insinuations, or innuendoes, about the oblong box—just
      to let him perceive, gradually, that I was not altogether the
      butt, or victim, of his little bit of pleasant mystification. My
      first observation was by way of opening a masked battery. I said
      something about the “peculiar shape of _that_ box”; and, as I
      spoke the words, I smiled knowingly, winked, and touched him
      gently with my forefinger in the ribs. The manner in which Wyatt received this harmless pleasantry
      convinced me, at once, that he was mad. At first he stared at me
      as if he found it impossible to comprehend the witticism of my
      remark; but as its point seemed slowly to make its way into his
      brain, his eyes, in the same proportion, seemed protruding from
      their sockets. Then he grew very red—then hideously pale—then, as
      if highly amused with what I had insinuated, he began a loud and
      boisterous laugh, which, to my astonishment, he kept up, with
      gradually increasing vigor, for ten minutes or more. In
      conclusion, he fell flat and heavily upon the deck. When I ran to
      uplift him, to all appearance he was dead. I called assistance, and, with much difficulty, we brought him to
      himself. Upon reviving he spoke incoherently for some time. At
      length we bled him and put him to bed. The next morning he was
      quite recovered, so far as regarded his mere bodily health. Of
      his mind I say nothing, of course. I avoided him during the rest
      of the passage, by advice of the captain, who seemed to coincide
      with me altogether in my views of his insanity, but cautioned me
      to say nothing on this head to any person on board. Several circumstances occurred immediately after this fit of
      Wyatt which contributed to heighten the curiosity with which I
      was already possessed. Among other things, this: I had been
      nervous—drank too much strong green tea, and slept ill at
      night—in fact, for two nights I could not be properly said to
      sleep at all. Now, my state-room opened into the main cabin, or
      dining-room, as did those of all the single men on board. Wyatt’s
      three rooms were in the after-cabin, which was separated from the
      main one by a slight sliding door, never locked even at night. As
      we were almost constantly on a wind, and the breeze was not a
      little stiff, the ship heeled to leeward very considerably; and
      whenever her starboard side was to leeward, the sliding door
      between the cabins slid open, and so remained, nobody taking the
      trouble to get up and shut it. But my berth was in such a
      position, that when my own state-room door was open, as well as
      the sliding door in question (and my own door was always open on
      account of the heat,) I could see into the after-cabin quite
      distinctly, and just at that portion of it, too, where were
      situated the state-rooms of Mr. Wyatt. Well, during two nights
      (not consecutive) while I lay awake, I clearly saw Mrs. W., about
      eleven o’clock upon each night, steal cautiously from the
      state-room of Mr. W., and enter the extra room, where she
      remained until daybreak, when she was called by her husband and
      went back. That they were virtually separated was clear.