ked in
Derrick's face. Its white fury appalled me. What he had borne hitherto
from the Major, God only knows, but this was the last drop in the cup.
Daily insults, ceaseless provocation, even the humiliations of personal
violence he had borne with superhuman patience; but this last injury,
this wantonly cruel outrage, this deliberate destruction of an amount of
thought, and labour, and suffering which only the writer himself could
fully estimate--this was intolerable.

What might have happened had the Major been sober and in the possession
of ordinary physical strength I hardly care to think. As it was, his
weakness protected him. Derrick's wrath was speechless; with one look
of loathing and contempt at the drunken man, he strode out of the room,
caught up his hat, and hurried from the house.

The Major sat chuckling to himself for a minute or two, but soon he grew
drowsy, and before long was snoring like a grampus. The old landlady
brought in lunch, saw the state of things pretty quickly, shook her head
and commiserated Derrick. Then, when she had left the room, seeing no
prospect that either of my companions would be in a fit state for lunch,
I made a solitary meal, and had just finished when a cab stopped at the
door and out sprang Derrick. I went into the passage to meet him.

"The Major is asleep," I remarked.

He took no more notice than if I had spoken of the cat.

"I'm going to London," he said, making for the stairs. "Can you get your
bag ready? There's a train at 2.5."

Somehow the suddenness and the self-control with which he made this
announcement carried me back to the hotel at Southampton, where, after
listening to the account of the ship's doctor, he had announced his
intention of living with his father. For more than two years he had
borne this awful life; he had lost pretty nearly all that there was
to be lost and he had gained the Major's vindictive hatred. Now, half
maddened by pain, and having, as he thought, so hopelessly failed, he
saw nothing for it but to go--and that at once.

I packed my bag, and then went to help him. He was cramming all his
possessions into portmanteaux and boxes; the Hoffman was already packed,
and the wall looked curiously bare without it. Clearly this was no visit
to London--he was leaving Bath for good, and who could wonder at it?

"I have arranged for the attendant from the hospital to come in at night
as well as in the morning," he said, as he locked a portmante