_She_ won't break her heart for me; nobody loves me but mother, and it's for her sake I must go.

She mustn't work herself to death for me." And then he sat down in the window to write a note to be given to his mother after he had sailed, for he could not trust himself to tell her what he was about to do.

He knew that she would try to persuade him to stay, and he felt faint-hearted when he thought of her.

"She would sit up early and late, and work for me to the last gasp," he thought, "but father was right.

It is selfish of me to take it," and so he sat trying to fashion his parting note into a tone of cheerfulness.
"My dear mother," he wrote, "this will come to you when I have set off on a four years' voyage round the world.