And then he remembered how he had determined to break away from the woman at Sydney, and to explain to her, as he might then have done without injustice, that they two could be of no service the one to the other, and that they had better part.

It seemed now, as he looked back, to have been so easy for him then to have avoided danger, so easy to have kept a straight course! But now,--now, surely he would be overwhelmed.
And then how easy it would have been, had he been more careful at the beginning of these troubles, to have bought these wretches off! He had been, he now acknowledged, too peremptory in his first refusal to refund a portion of the money to Crinkett.

The application had, indeed, been made without those proofs as to the condition of the mine which had since reached him, and he had distrusted Crinkett.

Crinkett he had known to be a man not to be trusted.

But yet, even after receiving the letter from Euphemia Smith, the matter might have been arranged.