Volume III
While Frankenstein tries to delay the fulfilment of his promise in Geneva, his father proposes that he follow his mother's dying wish by marrying Elizabeth. Although he looks forward to the wedding, Frankenstein is unwilling to marry until he has created the Creature's mate, he delays the event until he has finished a tour of Europe. On the way he meets Clerval and the two travel across the Continent to London and thence to Edinburgh. There Victor leaves Clerval and heads to the remote Orkney Islands to fulfil his promise. He is tortured with anxiety over the prospect of his two creations mating and propagating "a race of devils" and he destroys the half-finished companion. Upon seeing this, the Creature, who has followed him across Europe, vows vengeance. Frankenstein sets out in the middle of the night in a small boat to rid himself of the she-creature’s remains, when he returns, he is blamed for Clerval’s murder. He lapses into a nervous fever for two months; upon waking, he is cleared of charges, and travels with his father back toward Geneva. In Paris he receives a letter from Elizabeth, which makes him resolve to marry her at once, despite the Creature's threat.
On their wedding night, Frankenstein realizes the true significance of this threat; he finds Elizabeth dead. The news of this results in the death of Victor's father. Frankenstein sets out on a mission to destroy the Creature. Here Frankenstein's narrative ends, and Walton continues his letters to his sister.
The sailors, still ice-bound, threaten mutiny, and are calmed only when Frankenstein urges them on, but still, they resolve to go back to England. Frankenstein, refusing to abandon his quest, wants to continue northward, but his health fails him, and he dies. Walton, hearing a noise in the dead man's room, enters it to find the Creature over his body. After delivering an oration, the creature vows to immolate his own body at the North Pole, and springs out the window onto the ice.