conscience.

The more ashamed I was, the more hurry I was in to be gone; and our
desires thus jumping together, I made the less remark of a change
in the traders. Case had been all eagerness to keep me; now, as
though he had attained a purpose, he seemed all eagerness to have
me go. Uma, he said, could show me to my house, and the three bade
us farewell indoors.

The night was nearly come; the village smelt of trees and flowers
and the sea and bread-fruit-cooking; there came a fine roll of sea
from the reef, and from a distance, among the woods and houses,
many pretty sounds of men and children. It did me good to breathe
free air; it did me good to be done with the captain and see,
instead, the creature at my side. I felt for all the world as
though she were some girl at home in the Old Country, and,
forgetting myself for the minute, took her hand to walk with. Her
fingers nestled into mine, I heard her breathe deep and quick, and
all at once she caught my hand to her face and pressed it there.
"You good!" she cried, and ran ahead of me, and stopped and looked
back and smiled, and ran ahead of me again, thus guiding me through
the edge of the bush, and by a quiet way to my own house.

The truth is, Case had done the courting for me in style - told her
I was mad to have her, and cared nothing for the consequence; and
the poor soul, knowing that which I was still ignorant of, believed
it, every word, and had her head nigh turned with vanity and
gratitude. Now, of all this I had no guess; I was one of those
most opposed to any nonsense about native women, having seen so
many whites eaten up by their wives' relatives, and made fools of