And while he was rendering these last services to the dead, the desolation of that life and the atrocious wretchedness of its end cried aloud to his compassion, whispered to him in tones of self-reproach.
"He ought to have handled the warning she had given him in another way.
He was convinced now that a simple display of watchfulness would have been enough to restrain that vile and cowardly crew.

But the fact was that he had not quite believed that anything would be attempted.
"The body of Laughing Anne having been 'committed to the deep' some twenty miles S.S.W.from Cape Selatan, the task before Davidson was to commit Laughing Anne's child to the care of his wife.

And there poor, good Davidson made a fatal move.

He didn't want to tell her the whole awful story, since it involved the knowledge of the danger from which he, Davidson, had escaped.

And this, too, after he had been laughing at her unreasonable fears only a short time before.
"'I thought that if I told her everything,' Davidson explained to me, 'she would never have a moment's peace while I was away on my trips.' "He simply stated that the boy was an orphan, the child of some people to whom he, Davidson, was under the greatest obligation, and that he felt morally bound to look after him.