nd rather to my surprise, came across Lawrence Vaughan.
We were talking together, when up came Connington of the Foreign Office.
"I say, Vaughan," he said, "Lord Remington wishes to be introduced
to you." I watched the old statesman a little curiously as he greeted
Lawrence, and listened to his first words: "Very glad to make your
acquaintance, Captain Vaughan; I understand that the author of that
grand novel, 'At Strife,' is a brother of yours." And poor Lawrence
spent a mauvais quart d'heure, inwardly fuming, I know, at the idea that
he, the hero of Saspataras Hill, should be considered merely as 'the
brother of Vaughan, the novelist.'

Fate, or perhaps I should say the effect of his own pernicious actions,
did not deal kindly just now with Lawrence. Somehow Freda learnt about
that will, and, being no bread-and-butter miss, content meekly to adore
her fiance and deem him faultless, she 'up and spake' on the subject,
and I fancy poor Lawrence must have had another mauvais quart d'heure.
It was not this, however, which led to a final breach between them; it
was something which Sir Richard discovered with regard to Lawrence's
life at Dover. The engagement was instantly broken off, and Freda, I am
sure, felt nothing but relief. She went abroad for some time, however,
and we did not see her till long after Lawrence had been comfortably
married to 1,500 pounds a year and a middle-aged widow, who had long
been a hero-worshipper, and who, I am told, never allowed any visitor to
leave the house without making some allusion to the memorable battle of
Saspataras Hill and her Lawrence's gallant action.

For the two years following after the Major's death, Derrick and I, as I
mentioned before, shared the rooms in Montague Street. For me, owing to
the trouble I spoke of, they were years of maddening suspense and
pain; but what pleasure I did manage to enjoy came entirely through the
success of my friend's books and from his companionship. It was odd that
from the care of his father he should immediately pass on to the care of
one who had made such a disastrous mistake as I had made. But I feel the
less compunction at the thought of the amount of sympathy I called
for at that time, because I notice that the giving of sympathy is a
necessity for Derrick, and that when the troubles of other folk do not
immediately thrust themselves into his life he carefully hunts them
up. During these two years he was reading for the Bar--not that he