"No one could be more submissive than he to my distinct decision that there was to be no more such wild talk. "For the rest of our walk he talked upon totally indifferent subjects. Certainly, of the two, I had been the most put out by his momentary ascent to a more tragic level. I wonder now whether I did not possibly suspect a great deal more than was intended. If so, what a fool I must have appeared! Is there anything so ridiculous as a demonstration of resistance where no attack is meditated? I began to feel so confused and ashamed that I hardly took the trouble to follow what he said. As we approached Dorracleugh, I began to feel more like myself. After a little silence he said what I am going to set down; I have gone over it again and again in my mind; I know I have added nothing, and I really think I write very nearly exactly as he spoke it. "'When I had that strange escape with my life from the Conway Castle,' he said, 'no man on earth was more willing and less fit to die than I. I don't suppose there was a more miserable man in England. I had disappointed my uncle by doing what seemed a very foolish thing. I could not tell him my motive--no one knew it--the secret was not mine--everything combined to embarrass and crush me. I had the hardest thing on earth to endure--unmerited condemnation was my portion. Some good people, whom, notwithstanding, I have learned to respect, spoke of me to my face as if I had committed a murder. My uncle understands me now, but he has not yet forgiven me. When I was at Malory, I was in a mood to shoot myself through the head; I was desperate, I was bitter, I was furious. Every unlucky thing that could happen did happen there. The very people who had judged me most cruelly turned up; and among them one who forced a quarrel on me, and compelled that miserable duel in which I wished at the time I had been killed.' "I listened to all this with more interest than I allowed him to see, as we walked on together side by side, I looking down on the path before us, and saying nothing. "'If it were not for one or two feelings left me, I should not know myself for the shipwrecked man who thanked his young hostess at Malory for her invaluable hospitality,' he said; 'there are some things one never forgets. I often think of Malory--I have thought of it in all kinds of distant, out-of-the-way, savage places; it rises before me as I saw it last. My life has all gone wrong. While hope remains, we can bear anything--but my last hope seems pretty near its setting--and, when it is out, I hope, seeing I cross and return in all weathers, there is drowning enough in that lake to give a poor fool, at least, a cool head and a quiet heart.'