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“It is not. It has been decided for me. My past decides it. Unless I am to woo in disguise, pretending myself something that I am not. I have killed. I have plundered. I have done dreadful things, unutterable things. I have even amassed some wealth. I own lands, in Jamaica and elsewhere, with plantations and the like. My proper mate among women would be some unfortunate soulless drab who would be indifferent to the source of the money that will support us. I am not so lost – lost though I may be – as to give such a mother to my children. Nor yet am I so lost as to presume to woo any woman of another kind. It is the only honesty remaining me; the last frail link with honour. If that were to snap, then should I be damned, indeed. No, no, sweet lady, whatever I may find to build in the Old World if I reach it, certainly it will not be a family.” — Rafael Sabatini