And when he said I’d got to go into the business I just told him I’d see him damned first.  That was when he first saw that you can’t make any man a slave—­not even your own son—­as long as he’s got enough to eat.  He couldn’t starve me.  It’s starved men who are made slaves, Jenny.  They’ve got no guts.  Well, he threw me over.  He thought I should starve myself and then go back to him, fawning.  I didn’t go.  I was eighteen, and I went on a ship.  I had two years of it; and my father died.  I got nothing.  All went to a cousin.  I was nobody; but I was free.  Freedom’s the only thing that’s worth while in this life.  And I was twenty or so.  It was then that I picked up a girl in London and tried to keep her—­not honest, but straight to me.  I looked after her for a year, working down by the river.  But it was no good.  She went off with other men because I got tired of her.  I threw her over when I found that out.  I mean, I told her she could stick to me or let me go.  She wanted both.  I went to sea again.  It was then I met Templecombe.  I met him in South America, and we got very pally.  Then I came back to England.  I got engaged to a girl—­got married to her when I was twenty-three ...”

“Married!” cried Jenny, pulling herself away.  She had flushed deeply.  Her heart was like lead.

“I’m not lying.  You’re hearing it all.  And she’s dead.”

“What was her name?”

“Adela....  She was little and fair; and she was a little sport.  But I only married her because I was curious.  I didn’t care for her.  In a couple of months I knew I’d made a mistake.  She told me herself.  She knew much more than I did.  She was older than I was; and she knew a lot for her age—­about men.  She’d been engaged to one and another since she was fifteen; and in ten years you get to know a good deal.  I think she knew everything about men—­and I was a boy.  She died two years ago.  Well, after I’d been with her for a year I broke away.  She only wanted me to fetch and carry....  She ‘took possession’ of me, as they say.  I went into partnership with a man who let me in badly; and Adela went back to her work and I went back to sea.  And a year later I went to prison because a woman I was living with was a jealous cat and got the blame thrown on to me for something I knew nothing about.  D’you see?  Prison.  Never mind the details.  When I came out of prison I was going downhill as fast as a barrel; and then I saw an advertisement of Templecombe’s for a skipper.  I saw him, and told him all about myself; and he agreed to overlook my little time in prison if I signed on with him to look after this yacht.  Now you see I haven’t got a very good record.  I’ve been in prison; and I’ve lived with three women; and I’ve got no prospects except that I’m a good sailor and know my job.  But I never did what I was sent to prison for; and, as I told you, the three women all knew more than I did.  I’ve never done a girl any harm intentionally; and the last of them belongs to six