We walked that afternoon along the Bradford Valley, a road which
Derrick was specially fond of. He loved the thickly-wooded hills,
and the glimpses of the Avon, which, flanked by the canal and the
railway, runs parallel with the high road; he always admired, too, a
certain little village with grey stone cottages which lay in this
direction, and liked to look at the site of the old hall near the
road: nothing remained of it but the tall gate posts and rusty iron
gates looking strangely dreary and deserted, and within one could
see, between some dark yew trees, an old terrace walk with stone
steps and balustrades--the most ghostly-looking place you can
conceive.

"I know you'll put this into a book some day," I said, laughing.

"Yes," he said, "it is already beginning to simmer in my brain."
Apparently his deep disappointment as to his first venture had in no
way affected his perfectly clear consciousness that, come what
would, he had to write.

As we walked back to Bath he told me his 'Ruined Hall' story as far
as it had yet evolved itself in his brain, and we were still
discussing it when in Milsom Street we met a boy crying evening
papers, and details of the last great battle at Saspataras Hill.

Derrick broke off hastily, everything but anxiety for Lawrence
driven from his mind.