he usual
experience of seafaring men. I experienced cold, hunger, and storm;
but was indifferent to them. I do not think I had any interest in
life. Often death stared me in the face, and I did not flinch. I
should not have minded had the hand of death struck me down. Indeed,
if I ever wished for anything it was that I should die, and still I
remained strong, and hearty, and well.

But my love for Ruth died not, my hatred for Wilfred was as strong as
it was when I had seen him with Ruth on the great headland watching the
ship in which I sailed. Every fact of my early life, and of my
relations with Ruth, was as real and vivid as when I had lived at home.
The eight years I had been away had destroyed neither my memory, nor my
feelings.

It was a wild life I lived. I had no friends, no ties, nothing, in
fact, to refine or purify. The hatred in my heart kept me from being
loved by my associates, and nothing kept me from sinking to the lowest
depths of degradation but my love for Ruth. Often, when I was on the
point of yielding to the low and the depraved, my love for her saved
me. That was a pure force in my life, and it was my salvation.

Often did I think of the old home life. Often did I imagine what my
mother and the rest would be doing. Sometimes I asked myself if ever
they thought of me, or if they had any idea as to what had become of
me. I tried to comfort myself by believing that they thought about me,
or that they mourned me as dead. Then I hoped that they wished me
alive and waited for my home-coming; but that hope was speedily
dispelled by the remembrance of my last interview with Ruth and my
mother.

Strange to say, I never once longed to return home; never once desired
that my feet should stand on the spongy turf on the great headland;
never wanted to speak to any one of the family. I felt that I was a
banished man, homeless and friendless.

It may be that some will say the "Trewinion's curse" is merely an idle
tale. I know not; this I know: that ever since I realised my hatred
for Wilfred, on the morning of my departure, I lived a new life, a life
that was all dark. The skies were black, the earth was black, and,
worst of all, my heart was black. Never since then had I known real
joy or gladness. A terrible despair gnawed at my heart, and this I
carried everywhere. I had thought that by going away from the scenes
of my childhood I should escape my sorrow. I was foolish to think so.