opening chapters of the book now so well known under the title of 'Lynwood's Heritage.'

I had heard nothing of his for the last four years, and was amazed at the gigantic stride he had made in the interval. For, spite of a certain crudeness, it seemed to me a most powerful story; it rushed straight to the point with no wavering, no beating about the bush; it flung itself into the problems of the day with a sort of sublime audacity; it took hold of one; it whirled one along with its own inherent force, and drew forth both laughter and tears, for Derrick's power of pathos had always been his strongest point.

All at once he stopped reading.

"Go on!" I cried impatiently.

"That is all," he said, gathering the sheets together.

"You stopped in the middle of a sentence!" I cried in exasperation.

"Yes," he said quietly, "for six months."

"You provoking fellow! why, I wonder?"

"Because I didn't know the end."

"Good heavens! And do you know it now?"

He looked me full in the face, and there was an expression in his eyes which puzzled me.

"I believe I do," he said; and, getting up, he crossed the room, put the manuscript away in a drawer, and returning, sat down in the window-seat again, looking out on the narrow, paved street below, and at the grey buildings opposite.

I knew very well that he would never ask me what I thought of the story—that was not his way.

"Derrick!" I exclaimed, watching his impassive face, "I believe after all you are a genius."

I hardly know why I said "after all," but till that moment it had never struck me that Derrick was particularly gifted. He had so far got through his Oxford career creditably, but then he had worked hard; his talents were not of a showy order. I had never expected that he would set the Thames on fire. Even now it seemed to me that he was too dreamy, too quiet, too devoid of the pushing faculty to succeed in the world.

My remark made him laugh incredulously.

"Define a genius," he said.

For answer I pulled down his beloved Imperial Dictionary and read him the following quotation from De Quincey: 'Genius is that mode of intellectual power which moves in alliance with the genial nature, i.e., with the capacities of pleasure and pain; whereas talent has no vestige of such an alliance, and is perfectly independent of all human sensibilities.'

"Let me think! You can certainly enjoy things a hundred times more than I can—and as for suffering, why you were always a great hand at that. Now listen to the great Dr. Johnson and see if the cap fits, 'The true genius is a mind of large general powers accidentally determined in some particular direction.'

"'Large general powers'!—yes, I believe after all you have them with, alas, poor Derrick! one notable exception—the mathematical faculty. You were always bad at figures. We will stick to De Quincey's definition, and for heaven's sake, my dear fellow, do get Lynwood out of that awful plight! No wonder you were depressed when you lived all this age with such a sentence unfinished!"

"For the matter of that," said Derrick, "he can't get out till the end of the book; but I can begin to go on with him now."

"And when you leave Oxford?"

"Then I mean to settle down in London—to write leisurely—and possibly to read for the Bar."

"We might be together," I suggested. And Derrick took to this idea, being a man who detested solitude and crowds about equally. Since his mother's death he had been very much alone in the world. To Lawrence he was always loyal, but the two had nothing in common, and though fond of his sister he could not get on at all with the manufacturer, his brother-in-law. But this prospect of life together in London pleased him amazingly; he began to recover his spirits to a great extent and to look much more like himself.

It must have been just as he had taken his degree that he received a telegram to announce that Major Vaughan had been invalided home, and would arrive at Southampton in three weeks' time. Derrick knew very little of his father, but apparently Mrs. Vaughan had done her best to keep up a sort of memory of his childish days at Aldershot, and in these the part that his father played was always pleasant. So he looked forward to the meeting not a little, while I, from the first, had my doubts as to the felicity it was likely to bring him.

However, it was ordained that before the Major's ship arrived, his son's whole life should change. Even Lynwood was thrust into the background. As for me, I was nowhere. For Derrick, the quiet, the self-contained, had fallen passionately in love with a certain Freda Merrifield.

Chapter II.

The wonder would have been if he had not fallen in love with her, for a more fascinating girl I never saw. She had only just returned from school at Compiegne, and was not yet out; her charming freshness was unsullied; she had all the simplicity and straightforwardness of unspoilt, unsophisticated girlhood. I well remember our first sight of her. We had been invited for a fortnight's yachting by Calverley of Exeter. His father, Sir John Calverley, had a sailing yacht, and some guests having disappointed him at the last minute, he gave his son carte blanche as to who he should bring to fill the vacant berths.

So we three travelled down to Southampton together one hot summer day, and were rowed out to the Aurora, an uncommonly neat little schooner which lay in that over-rated and frequently odoriferous roadstead, Southampton Water. However, I admit that on that evening—the tide being high—the place looked remarkably pretty; the level rays of the setting sun turned the water to gold; a soft luminous haze hung over the town and the shipping, and by a stretch of imagination one might have thought the view almost Venetian. Derrick's perfect content was only marred by his shyness. I knew that he dreaded reaching the Aurora; and sure enough, as we stepped on to the exquisitely white deck and caught sight of the little group of guests, I saw him retreat into his crab-shell of silent reserve. Sir John, who made a very pleasant host, introduced us to the other visitors—Lord Probyn and his wife and their niece, Miss Freda Merrifield. Lady Probyn was Sir John's sister, and also the sister of Miss Merrifield's mother; so that it was almost a family party, and by no means a formidable gathering. Lady Probyn played the part of hostess and chaperoned her pretty niece; but she was not in the least like the aunt of fiction—on the contrary, she was comparatively young in years and almost comically young in mind; her niece was devoted to her, and the moment I saw her I knew that our cruise could not possibly be dull.

As to Miss Freda, when we first caught sight of her she was standing near the companion, dressed in a daintily made yachting costume of blue serge and white braid, and round her white sailor hat she wore the name of the yacht stamped on a white ribbon; in her waist-band she had fastened two deep crimson roses, and she looked at us with frank, girlish curiosity, no doubt wondering whether we should add to or detract from the enjoyment of the expedition. She was rather tall, and there was an air of strength and energy about her which was most refreshing. Her skin was singularly white, but there was a healthy glow of colour in her cheeks; while her large, grey eyes, shaded by long lashes, were full of life and brightness. As to her features, they