The injustice that Fotherby had witnessed did not leave him as the season wore on. The execution of a man whose only crime was induced by the conditions forced upon him, seemed not only unjust but inescapably cruel. He had sat with his pen poised on so many occasions to relate the bitter news to Miss Simmons, but he could not bring himself to. He had remained away from people as often as he could, or he would walk though the city of Calcutta, trying to lose himself in its wilderness buildings. When it was announced in the third week of August that one of the enormous Indiamen were to make a voyage back to England, however, he met the news with mixed emotions, sorry to be leaving India but pleased to be returning to those people who had been left to him.

It was the last day of December before he...

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