"How oft Fate's sharpest blow shall leave thee strong,
With some re-risen ecstacy of song."
F. W. H. Myers.

As the autumn wore on, we heard now and then from old Mackrill the
doctor. His reports of the Major were pretty uniform. Derrick used
to hand them over to me when he had read them; but, by tacit
consent, the Major's name was never mentioned.

Meantime, besides re-writing 'At Strife,' he was accumulating
material for his next book and working to very good purpose. Not a
minute of his day was idle; he read much, saw various phases of life
hitherto unknown to him, studied, observed, gained experience, and
contrived, I believe, to think very little and very guardedly of
Freda.

But, on Christmas Eve, I noticed a change in him--and that very
night he spoke to me. For such an impressionable fellow, he had
really extraordinary tenacity, and, spite of the course of Herbert
Spencer that I had put him through, he retained his unshaken faith
in many things which to me were at that time the merest legends. I
remember very well the arguments we used to have on the vexed
question of 'Free-will,' and being myself more or less of a
fatalist, it annoyed me that I never could in the very slightest
degree shake his convictions on that point. Moreover, when I
plagued him too much with Herbert Spencer, he had a way of
retaliating, and would foist upon me his favourite authors. He was
never a worshipper of any one writer, but always had at least a
dozen prophets in whose praise he was enthusiastic.