"

Certainly before that night I had never quite realised the
irrevocableness of poor Derrick's passion. I had half hoped that time
and separation would gradually efface Freda Merrifield from his memory;
and I listened with a dire foreboding to the flood of wretchedness
which he poured forth as we paced up and down, thinking now and then how
little people guessed at the tremendous powers hidden under his usually
quiet exterior.

At length he paused, but his last heart-broken words seemed to vibrate
in the air and to force me to speak some kind of comfort.

"Derrick," I said, "come back with me to London--give up this miserable
life."

I felt him start a little; evidently no thought of yielding had come
to him before. We were passing the house that used to belong to that
strange book-lover and recluse, Beckford. I looked up at the blank
windows, and thought of that curious, self-centred life in the past,
surrounded by every luxury, able to indulge every whim; and then I
looked at my companion's pale, tortured face, and thought of the life
he had elected to lead in the hope of saving one whom duty bound him to
honour. After all, which life was the most worth living--which was the
most to be admired?

We walked on; down below us and up on the farther hill we could see the
lights of Bath; the place so beautiful by day looked now like a fairy
city, and the Abbey, looming up against the moon-lit sky, seemed like
some great giant keeping watch over the clustering roofs below. The
well-known chimes rang out into the night and the clock struck ten.

"I must go back," said Derrick, quietly. "My father will want to get to
bed."

I couldn't say a word; we turned, passed Beckford's house once more,
walked briskly down the hill, and reached the Gay Street lodging-house.
I remember the stifling heat of the room as we entered it, and its
contrast to the cool, dark, winter's night outside. I can vividly
recall, too, the old Major's face as he looked up with a sarcastic
remark, but with a shade of anxiety in his bloodshot eyes. He was
leaning back in a green-cushioned chair, and his ghastly yellow
complexion seemed to me more noticeable than usual--his scanty grey
hair and whiskers, the lines of pain so plainly visible in his face,
impressed me curiously. I think I had never before realised what a wreck
of a man he was--how utterly dependent on others.

Lawrence, who, to do him justice, had a good deal of tact, and who, I
beli