ing boards, but, on the whole, proving
himself the best of companions.

If I wrote till Doomsday, I could never make you understand how the
burning of his novel affected him--to this day it is a subject I
instinctively avoid with him--though the re-written 'At Strife' has been
such a grand success. For he did re-write the story, and that at once.
He said little; but the very next morning, in one of the windows of
our quiet sitting-room, often enough looking despairingly at the grey
monotony of Montague Street, he began at 'Page I, Chapter I,' and so
worked patiently on for many months to re-make as far as he could
what his drunken father had maliciously destroyed. Beyond the unburnt
paragraph about the attack on Mondisfield, he had nothing except a
few hastily scribbled ideas in his note-book, and of course the very
elaborate and careful historical notes which he had made on the Civil
War during many years of reading and research--for this period had
always been a favourite study with him.

But, as any author will understand, the effort of re-writing was
immense, and this, combined with all the other troubles, tried Derrick
to the utmost. However, he toiled on, and I have always thought that his
resolute, unyielding conduct with regard to that book proved what a man
he was.

Chapter VIII.

"How oft Fate's sharpest blow shall leave thee strong,
With some re-risen ecstacy of song."
F. W. H. Myers.

As the autumn wore on, we heard now and then from old Mackrill the
doctor. His reports of the Major were pretty uniform. Derrick used to
hand them over to me when he had read them; but, by tacit consent, the
Major's name was never mentioned.

Meantime, besides re-writing 'At Strife,' he was accumulating material
for his next book and working to very good purpose. Not a minute of his
day was idle; he read much, saw various phases of life hitherto unknown
to him, studied, observed, gained experience, and contrived, I believe,
to think very little and very guardedly of Freda.

But, on Christmas Eve, I noticed a change in him--and that very night
he spoke to me. For such an impressionable fellow, he had really
extraordinary tenacity, and, spite of the course of Herbert Spencer that
I had put him through, he retained his unshaken faith in many things
which to me were at that time the merest legends. I remember very well
the arguments we used to have on the vexed questi