g words, and glancing now and then at Derrick's
grave, resolute face, which successfully masked such bitter suffering, I
couldn't help reflecting that here was courage infinitely more deserving
of the Victoria Cross than Lawrence's impulsive rescue. Very patiently
he sat through the long dinner. I doubt if any but an acute observer
could have told that he was in trouble; and, luckily, the world in
general observes hardly at all. He endured the Major till it was time
for him to take a Turkish bath, and then having two hours' freedom,
climbed with me up the rock-covered hill at the back of the hotel. He
was very silent. But I remember that, as we watched the sun go down--a
glowing crimson ball, half veiled in grey mist--he said abruptly, "If
Lawrence makes her happy I can bear it. And of course I always knew that
I was not worthy of her."

Derrick's room was a large, gaunt, ghostly place in one of the towers
of the hotel, and in one corner of it was a winding stair leading to the
roof. When I went in next morning I found him writing away at his novel
just as usual, but when I looked at him it seemed to me that the night
had aged him fearfully. As a rule, he took interruptions as a matter
of course, and with perfect sweetness of temper; but to-day he seemed
unable to drag himself back to the outer world. He was writing at a
desperate pace too, and frowned when I spoke to him. I took up the sheet
of foolscap which he had just finished and glanced at the number of the
page--evidently he had written an immense quantity since the previous
day.

"You will knock yourself up if you go on at this rate!" I exclaimed.

"Nonsense!" he said sharply. "You know it never tires me."

Yet, all the same, he passed his hand very wearily over his forehead,
and stretched himself with the air of one who had been in a cramping
position for many hours.

"You have broken your vow!" I cried. "You have been writing at night."

"No," he said; "it was morning when I began--three o'clock. And it pays
better to get up and write than to lie awake thinking."

Judging by the speed with which the novel grew in the next few weeks, I
could tell that Derrick's nights were of the worst.

He began, too, to look very thin and haggard, and I more than once
noticed that curious 'sleep-walking' expression in his eyes; he seemed
to me just like a man who has received his death-blow, yet still
lingers--half alive, half dead. I had an odd feeling that it was hi