I could well supply the end of the sentence, however, for I knew that then came the slow torture of a tete-a-tete day with the Major, stinging sarcasms, humiliating scoldings, vexations and difficulties innumerable.
I drew him to the left, having no mind to go to the top of the hill. We slackened our pace again and walked to and fro along the broad level pavement of Lansdowne Crescent. We had it entirely to ourselves—not another creature was in sight.
“I could bear it all,” he burst forth, “if only there was a chance of seeing Freda. Oh, you are better off than I am—at least, you know the worst. Your hope is killed, but mine lives on a tortured, starved life! Would to God I had never seen her!”
Certainly before that night I had never quite realised the irrevocableness of poor Derrick’s passion. I had half hoped that time and separation would gradually efface Freda Merrifield from his memory; and I listened with a dire foreboding to the flood of wretchedness which he poured forth as we paced up and down, thinking now and then how little people guessed at the tremendous powers hidden under his usually quiet exterior.
At length he paused, but his last heart-broken words seemed to vibrate in the air and to force me to speak some kind of comfort.
“Derrick,” I said, “come back with me to London—give up this miserable life.”
I felt him start a little; evidently no thought of yielding had come to him before. We were passing the house that used to belong to that strange book-lover and recluse, Beckford. I looked up at the blank windows, and thought of that curious, self-centred life in the past, surrounded by every luxury, able to indulge every whim; and then I looked at my companion’s pale, tortured face, and thought of the life he had elected to lead in the hope of saving one whom duty bound him to honour. After all, which life was the most worth living—which was the most to be admired?
We walked on; down below us and up on the farther hill we could see the lights of Bath; the place so beautiful by day looked now like a fairy city, and the Abbey, looming up against the moon-lit sky, seemed like some great giant keeping watch over the clustering roofs below. The well-known chimes rang out into the night and the clock struck ten.
“I must go back,” said Derrick, quietly. “My father will want to get to bed.”
I couldn’t say a word; we turned, passed Beckford’s house once more, walked briskly down the hill, and reached the Gay Street lodging-house. I remember the stifling heat of the room as we entered it, and its contrast to the cool, dark, winter’s night outside. I can vividly recall, too, the old Major’s face as he looked up with a sarcastic remark, but with a shade of anxiety in his bloodshot eyes. He was leaning back in a green-cushioned chair, and his ghastly yellow complexion seemed to me more noticeable than usual—his scanty grey hair and whiskers, the lines of pain so plainly visible in his face, impressed me curiously. I think I had never before realised what a wreck of a man he was—how utterly dependent on others.