" He paused
for a moment, frowning through his tears and with his brow drawn up
into many wrinkles. "It's a terrible thing, Holcombe," he began again,
fiercely, "to be shut off from all of that." He threw out his hand
with a sudden gesture toward the man-of-war. Holcombe looked down at
the water and laid his hand lightly on his companion's shoulder.
Carroll drew away and shook his head. "I don't want any sympathy," he
said, kindly. "I'm not crying the baby act. But you don't know, and I
don't believe anybody else knows, what I've gone through and what I've
suffered. You don't like me, Holcombe, and you don't like my class,
but I want to tell you something about my coming here. I want you to
set them right about it at home. And I don't care whether it interests
you or not," he said, with quick offense; "I want you to listen. It's
about my wife."
Holcombe bowed his head gravely.
"You got Thatcher his divorce," Carroll continued. "And you know that
he would never have got it but for me, and that everybody expected
that I would marry Mrs. Thatcher when the thing was over. And I
didn't, and everybody said I was a blackguard, and I was. It was bad
enough before, but I made it worse by not doing the only thing that
could make it any better. Why I didn't do it I don't know. I had some
grand ideas of reform about that time, I think, and I thought I owed
my people something, and that by not making Mrs. Thatcher my mother's
daughter I would be saving her and my sisters.
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