"She has no feeling," he said to himself. "Well, there is one reason the
more for my going. _She_ won't break her heart for me; nobody loves me
but mother, and it's for her sake I must go. She mustn't work herself to
death for me."
And then he sat down in the window to write a note to be given to his
mother after he had sailed, for he could not trust himself to tell her
what he was about to do. He knew that she would try to persuade him to
stay, and he felt faint-hearted when he thought of her. "She would sit
up early and late, and work for me to the last gasp," he thought, "but
father was right. It is selfish of me to take it," and so he sat trying
to fashion his parting note into a tone of cheerfulness.
"My dear mother," he wrote, "this will come to you when I have set off on
a four years' voyage round the world. Father has convinced me that it's
time for me to be doing something for myself; and I couldn't get a school
to keep--and, after all, education is got other ways than at college.
It's hard to go, because I love home, and hard because you will miss me--
though no one else will. But father may rely upon it, I will not be a
burden on him another day. Sink or swim, I shall _never_ come back till I
have enough to do for myself, and you too.
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