Fame is, after all, a hollow, unsatisfying thing to a man of his nature. He heartily enjoyed his success, he delighted in hearing that his books had given pleasure or had been of use to anyone, but no public victory could in the least make up to him for the loss he had suffered in his private life; indeed, I almost think there were times when his triumphs as an author seemed to him utterly worthless--days of depression when the congratulations of his friends were nothing but a mockery. He had gained a striking success, it is true, but he had lost Freda; he was in the position of the starving man who has received a gift of bon-bons, but so craves for bread that they half sicken him. I used now and then to watch his face when, as often happened, someone said: “What an enviable fellow you are, Vaughan, to get on like this!” or, “What wouldn’t I give to change places with you!” He would invariably smile and turn the conversation; but there was a look in his eyes at such times that I hated to see--it always made me think of Mrs. Browning’s poem, ‘The Mask’: “Behind no prison-grate, she said, Which slurs the sunshine half a mile, Live captives so uncomforted As souls behind a smile.” As to the Merrifields, there was no chance of seeing them, for Sir Richard had gone to India in some official capacity, and no doubt, as everyone said, they would take good care to marry Freda out there. Derrick had not seen her since that trying February at Bath, long ago. Yet I fancy she was never out of his thoughts. And so the years rolled on, and Derrick worked away steadily, giving his books to the world, accepting the comforts and discomforts of an author’s life, laughing at the outrageous reports that were in circulation about him, yet occasionally, I think, inwardly wincing at them, and learning from the number of begging letters which he received, and into which he usually caused searching inquiry to be made, that there are in the world a vast number of undeserving poor. One day I happened to meet Lady Probyn at a garden-party; it was at the same house on Campden Hill where I had once met Freda, and perhaps it was the recollection of this which prompted me to enquire after her. “She has not been well,” said Lady Probyn, “and they are sending her back to England; the climate doesn’t suit her. She is to make her home with us for the present, so I am the gainer. Freda has always been my favourite niece. I don’t know what it is about her that is so taking; she is not half so pretty as the others.” “But so much more charming,” I said. “I wonder she has not married out in India, as everyone prophesied.” “And so do I,” said her aunt. “However, poor child, no doubt, after having been two years engaged to that very disappointing hero of Saspataras Hill, she will be shy of venturing to trust anyone again.”