d
you had suffered enough--nay, more than enough--through him.

I wonder how you are, and if you have changed--I mean in appearance.
I am sure you are not married; I should have felt it in my bones,
if you were. No, no, my sweet lass, you are not married. But
think--it is more than seven long years since we met on the hills
above Playmore, and you put your hand in mine and said we should be
friends for all time. It is near three years since a letter came to
me from you, and in the time I have made progress.

I did not go to the United States, as you asked me to do. Is it not
plain I could not? My only course was to avoid you. You see, your
mother knows the truth--knows that I was jailed for killing your
father and her divorced husband. Therefore, the only way to do was
as I did. I could not go where you were. There should be hid from
you the fact that Erris Boyne was a traitor. This is your right, in
my mind. Looking back, I feel sure I could have escaped jail if I
had told what I knew of Erris Boyne; and perhaps it would have been
better, for I should, no doubt, have been acquitted. Yet I could
not have gone to you, for I am not sure I did not kill him.

So it is best as it is. We are as we are, and nothing can make all
different for us. I am a dissolute planter of Jamaica who has
snatched from destiny a living and some riches. I have a bad name
in the world. Yet by saving the king's navy from defeat out here I
did a good turn for my country and the empire.

So much to the good. It brought me freedom from the rope and pardon
for my chief offence. Then, in company with a rogue, I got wealth
from the depths of the sea, and here I am in the bottom of my
luxury, drunken and obscene--yes, obscene, for I permit my overseers
and my manager to keep black women and have children by them. That
I do not do so myself is no virtue on my part, but the virtue of a
girl whom I knew in Connemara. I fill myself with drink. I have a
bottle of madeira or port every night, and pints of beer or claret.
I am a creature of low habits, a man sodden with self-indulgence.
And when I am in drink, no slaver can be more cruel and ruthless.

Yet I am moderate in eating. The meals that people devour here
almost revolt me. They eat like cormorants and drink like dry
ground; but at my table I am careful, save with the bottle. This
is a la