The Major sat chuckling to himself for a minute or two, but soon he grew drowsy, and before long was snoring like a grampus. The old landlady brought in lunch, saw the state of things pretty quickly, shook her head and commiserated Derrick. Then, when she had left the room, seeing no prospect that either of my companions would be in a fit state for lunch, I made a solitary meal, and had just finished when a cab stopped at the door and out sprang Derrick. I went into the passage to meet him. “The Major is asleep,” I remarked. He took no more notice than if I had spoken of the cat. “I’m going to London,” he said, making for the stairs. “Can you get your bag ready? There’s a train at 2.5.” Somehow the suddenness and the self-control with which he made this announcement carried me back to the hotel at Southampton, where, after listening to the account of the ship’s doctor, he had announced his intention of living with his father. For more than two years he had borne this awful life; he had lost pretty nearly all that there was to be lost and he had gained the Major’s vindictive hatred. Now, half maddened by pain, and having, as he thought, so hopelessly failed, he saw nothing for it but to go--and that at once. I packed my bag, and then went to help him. He was cramming all his possessions into portmanteaux and boxes; the Hoffman was already packed, and the wall looked curiously bare without it. Clearly this was no visit to London--he was leaving Bath for good, and who could wonder at it? “I have arranged for the attendant from the hospital to come in at night as well as in the morning,” he said, as he locked a portmanteau that was stuffed almost to bursting. “What’s the time? We must make haste or we shall lose the train. Do, like a good fellow, cram that heap of things into the carpet-bag while I speak to the landlady.” At last we were off, rattling through the quiet streets of Bath, and reaching the station barely in time to rush up the long flight of stairs and spring into an empty carriage. Never shall I forget that journey. The train stopped at every single station, and sometimes in between; we were five mortal hours on the road, and more than once I thought Derrick would have fainted. However, he was not of the fainting order, he only grew more and more ghastly in colour and rigid in expression. I felt very anxious about him, for the shock and the sudden anger following on the trouble about Freda seemed to me enough to unhinge even a less sensitive nature. ‘At Strife’ was the novel which had, I firmly believe, kept him alive through that awful time at Ben Rhydding, and I began to fear that the Major’s fit of drunken malice might prove the destruction of the author as well as of the book. Everything had, as it were, come at once on poor Derrick; yet I don’t know that he fared worse than other people in this respect.