"I—d-don't w-want to g-get there. What's at the end of it? I know very well—I'll throw my damned self overboard, and then they'll see what they've done."
"Who's they? And what is it they've done?" She had no idea that it was an extraordinary thing to take so much interest in a perfect stranger. All her world hitherto had had the claims of friendship upon her.
"They never understood me," he cried passionately. "They were always trying to tie me down—they were always looking for faults. That's enough to make a man go to the devil."
"Is it? Tell me all about it," she said, drawing a little closer.
"Do you know," he cried bitterly, so intent that he forgot his nervousness and did not stammer, "I was the best man in my year. They all told me so, the Dean and everyone—but I never had a chance. I never got a free hand. And now do you know what I am? All because they never understood me?"
She shook her head wonderingly.
"I'm a remittance man."
"What's that?"
"Don't you know? They're very picturesque in fiction! You'll find h-h-heaps of them in Australia, spewed out as far as possible from the Old Country! It's the dumping ground, Australia is!"
"I don't understand," she said.