said he had got it done accidentally, and bade me say nothing about
it, and walked off there and then to the doctor's, and had it set. But
sir, given a man drunk as the Major was, and given a scuffle to get away
the drink that was poisoning him, and given a crash such as I heard,
and given a poker a-lying in the middle of the room where it stands to
reason no poker could get unless it was thrown--why, sir, no sensible
woman who can put two and two together can doubt that it was all the
Major's doing."

"Yes," I said, "that is clear enough; but for Mr. Vaughan's sake we must
hush it up; and, as for safety, why, the Major is hardly strong enough
to do him any worse damage than that."

The good old thing wiped away a tear from her eyes. She was very fond of
Derrick, and it went to her heart that he should lead such a dog's life.

I said what I could to comfort her, and she went down again, fearful
lest he should discover her upstairs and guess that she had opened her
heart to me.

Poor Derrick! That he of all people on earth should be mixed up with
such a police court story--with drunkard, and violence, and pokers
figuring in it! I lay back in the camp chair and looked at Hoffman's
'Christ,' and thought of all the extraordinary problems that one is for
ever coming across in life. And I wondered whether the people of Bath
who saw the tall, impassive-looking, hazel-eyed son and the invalid
father in their daily pilgrimages to the Pump Room, or in church on
Sunday, or in the Park on sunny afternoons had the least notion of
the tragedy that was going on. My reflections were interrupted by his
entrance. He had forced up a cheerfulness that I am sure he didn't
really feel, and seemed afraid of letting our talk flag for a moment. I
remember, too, that for the first time he offered to read me his novel,
instead of as usual waiting for me to ask to hear it. I can see him
now, fetching the untidy portfolio and turning over the pages, adroitly
enough, as though anxious to show how immaterial was the loss of a left
arm. That night I listened to the first half of the third volume of
'Lynwood's Heritage,' and couldn't help reflecting that its author
seemed to thrive on misery; and yet how I grudged him to this
deadly-lively place, and this monotonous, cooped-up life.

"How do you manage to write one-handed?" I asked.

And he sat down to his desk, put a letter-weight on the left-hand corner
of the sheet of foolscap, and wrote that