was always an abominably scribbled tale stowed away in Derrick's
desk, and he worked infinitely harder than I did, because there was
always before him this determination to be an author and to prepare
himself for the life. But he wrote merely from love of it, and with
no idea of publication until the beginning of our last year at
Oxford, when, having reached the ripe age of one-and-twenty, he
determined to delay no longer, but to plunge boldly into his first
novel.

He was seldom able to get more than six or eight hours a week for
it, because he was reading rather hard, so that the novel progressed
but slowly. Finally, to my astonishment, it came to a dead stand-
still.

I have never made out exactly what was wrong with Derrick then,
though I know that he passed through a terrible time of doubt and
despair. I spent part of the Long with him down at Ventnor, where
his mother had been ordered for her health. She was devoted to
Derrick, and as far as I can understand, he was her chief comfort in
life. Major Vaughan, the husband, had been out in India for years;
the only daughter was married to a rich manufacturer at Birmingham,
who had a constitutional dislike to mothers-in-law, and as far as
possible eschewed their company; while Lawrence, Derrick's twin
brother, was for ever getting into scrapes, and was into the bargain
the most unblushingly selfish fellow I ever had the pleasure of
meeting.

"Sydney," said Mrs. Vaughan to me one afternoon when we were in the
garden, "Derrick seems to me unlike himself, there is a division
between us which I never felt before. Can you tell me what is