If I had distinguished myself in any other way, it would have been
a different thing. It was the fussy, sentimental, inconsiderate
interest in one thrown into purely accidental and necessarily
painful prominence - the vulgarization of an unspeakable tragedy
- that my soul abhorred. I confess that I regarded it from my own
unique and selfish point of view. What was a thrilling matter to
the world was a torturing memory to me. The quintessence of the
torture was, moreover, my own secret. It was not the loss of the
Lady Jermyn that I could not bear to speak about; it was my own
loss; but the one involved the other. My loss apart, however, it
was plain enough to dwell upon experiences so terrible and yet so
recent as those which I had lived to tell. I did what I considered
my duty to the public, but I certainly did no more. My reticence
was rebuked in the papers that made the most of me, but would fain
have made more. And yet I do not think that I was anything but
docile with those who had a manifest right to question me; to the
owners, and to other interested persons, with whom I was confronted
on one pretext or another, I told my tale as fully and as freely as
I have told it here, though each telling hurt more than the last.
That was necessary and unavoidable; it was the private intrusions
which I resented with all the spleen the sea had left me in exchange
for the qualities it had taken away.

Relatives I had as few as misanthropist could desire; but from
self-congratulation on the fact, on first landing, I soon came to
keen regret. They at least would have sheltered me from spies and
busybodies; they at least would have secured the peace and privacy
of one who was no hero in fact or spirit, whose noblest deed was a
piece of self preservation which he wished undone with all his
heart.