"I believe now, looking back, that this was the real beginning of
Santa's revenge; or the first evident sign of its working; unless you
count the behaviour of the dog--of which I will say more presently.
At any rate I had no longer that cool godlike sense of mastery over
the man which had sustained me in the boat. It may sound incredible:
but whereas, cooped in that narrow shell of boards, I had found his
presence gratifying, here on an island of wide prospects, where we
could have parcelled out a kingdom apiece and lived by the year
without sight of one another, I found it irritating and at times even
intolerably so. He had found power, through her dead body, to give
me a grievance against him, when I had supposed him too low and
myself too high for anything to affect me that he could do. . . .
It is always a mistake, Roddy, to falter once in an experiment.
It is disloyalty in a man of science to renounce one at any point.
Now, I had renounced, in handing Santa the flask; and again I had
faltered, in a moment of generosity when I left him beside her
corpse.
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