erek," he said, "you've dwelt on this till you see it out of all
proportion. If we took to ourselves the remote consequences of all our
words we should none of us survive a week. You're overdone. You'll see
it differently to-morrow."

Derek got up to pace the room.

"I swear I would have saved him. I tried to do it when they committed
him at Transham." He looked wildly at Felix. "Didn't I? You were there;
you heard!"

"Yes, yes; I heard."

"They wouldn't let me then. I thought they mightn't find him guilty
here--so I let it go on. And now he's dead. You don't know how I feel!"

His throat was working, and Felix said with real compassion:

"My dear boy! Your sense of honour is too extravagant altogether. A
grown man like poor Tryst knew perfectly what he was doing."

"No. He was like a dog--he did what he thought was expected of him. I
never meant him to burn those ricks."

"Exactly! No one can blame you for a few wild words. He might have been
the boy and you the man by the way you take it! Come!"

Derek sat down again on the shiny sofa and buried his head in his hands.

"I can't get away from him. He's been with me all day. I see him all
the time."

That the boy was really haunted was only too apparent. How to attack
this mania? If one could make him feel something else! And Felix said:

"Look here, Derek! Before you've any right to Nedda you've got to find
ballast. That's a matter of honour, if you like."

Derek flung up his head as if to escape a blow. Seeing that he had
riveted him, Felix pressed on, with some sternness:

"A man can't serve two passions. You must give up this championing the
weak and lighting flames you can't control. See what it leads to!
You've got to grow and become a man. Until then I don't trust my
daughter to you."

The boy's lips quivered; a flush darkened his face, ebbed, and left him
paler than ever.

Felix felt as if he had hit that face. Still, anything was better than
to leave him under this gruesome obsession! Then, to his consternation,
Derek stood up and said:

"If I go and see his body at the prison, perhaps he'll leave me alone a
little!"

Catching at that, as he would have caught at anything, Felix said:

"Good! Yes! Go and see the poor fellow; we'll come, too."

And he went out to find Nedda.

By the time they reached the street Derek had already started, and they
could see him going along in front. Felix racked his brains to