He had set out to bring Cynthia to his son; he had pledged his honour to accomplish it.

How was he fulfilling his trust?
In his despondency, during a moment when alone, he cursed the knave that had wounded him for his clumsiness in not having taken a lower aim when he fired, and thus solved him this ugly riddle of life for all time.
Vainly did he strive to console himself and endeavour to palliate the wrong he had done with the consideration that he was the man Cynthia loved, and not his son; that his son was nothing to her, and that she would never have accompanied him had she dreamt that he wooed her for another.
No.

The deed was foul, and rendered fouler still by virtue of those other wrongs in whose extenuation it had been undertaken.

For a moment he grew almost a coward.

He was on the point of bidding Master Jackson avoid Calais and make some other port along the coast.