I could show you the very spot near the East window where Derrick told me the whole truth, and where we talked over Freda’s perfections and the probability of frequent meetings in London. He had listened so often and so patiently to my affairs, that it seemed an odd reversal to have to play the confidant; and if now and then my thoughts wandered off to the coming month at Mondisfield, and pictured violet eyes while he talked of grey, it was not from any lack of sympathy with my friend.
Derrick was not of a self-tormenting nature, and though I knew he was amazed at the thought that such a girl as Freda could possibly care for him, yet he believed most implicitly that this wonderful thing had come to pass; and, remembering her face as we had last seen it, and the look in her eyes at Tresco, I, too, had not a shadow of a doubt that she really loved him. She was not the least bit of a flirt, and society had not had a chance yet of moulding her into the ordinary girl of the nineteenth century.
Perhaps it was the sudden and unexpected change of the next day that makes me remember Derrick’s face so distinctly as he lay back on the smooth turf that afternoon in Netley Abbey. As it looked then, full of youth and hope, full of that dream of cloudless love, I never saw it again.
“Religion in him never died, but became a habit--a habit of enduring hardness, and cleaving to the steadfast performance of duty in the face of the strongest allurements to the pleasanter and easier course.” Life of Charles Lamb, by A. Ainger.
Derrick was in good spirits the next day. He talked much of Major Vaughan, wondered whether the voyage home had restored his health, discussed the probable length of his leave, and speculated as to the nature of his illness; the telegram had of course given no details.
“There has not been even a photograph for the last five years,” he remarked, as we walked down to the quay together. “Yet I think I should know him anywhere, if it is only by his height. He used to look so well on horseback. I remember as a child seeing him in a sham fight charging up Caesar’s Camp.”
“Oh, quite a small boy,” replied Derrick. “It was just before I first stayed with you. However, he has had a regular succession of photographs sent out to him, and will know me easily enough.”