condemned was a less guilty man than I.

This, as I was beginning to see, was but an argument with myself for a
final dismissal of my old life. Surely I should be ashamed to admit that
in such fashion was my brain trying to fool my soul; but so it was.
Remorse? I should have been worn with remorse, I know; but I was not. I
tried to grieve for my hasty judgment of Captain Blaise: and I did. But
for the Governor's son, not a qualm. I, too, like Captain Blaise, had
become the creature of hereditary instincts and overpowering emotion.
Never in all my life before had I thought that any sin or shortcoming of
mine was ever to be anybody's business but my own. My salvation lay in
the future, which, now that my conscience was awakened, I would have
only myself to censure if it did not become what I wished.

But these serious thoughts were of previous days. This morning I was to
have some little composition ready for her when she came down. I turned
to my paper and pencil and began to write. But thoughts, such thoughts
as I conceived would please her, came slowly. My new conscience or it
may have been the voices of the quarter-deck,--her father's questions,
Captain Blaise's muffled answers, her exclamations of delight and
wonder,--all these diverted me. In despair I tried to catch, as I
usually could, what Captain Blaise was saying, but to-day he spoke in so
low a tone that I could not quite.

Ubbo came down for a chart, a particular chart which Captain Blaise has
always kept apart from the others. I pointed out to him where he would
find it. And my eye followed his figure up the cabin steps. In a
sailor's costume Ubbo was proud but perspiring, though devotion shone
out in every drop of perspiration.