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 were perhaps a trifle irregular, and her elder sisters were supposed to eclipse her altogether; but to my mind she was far the most taking of the three.

I was not in the least surprised that Derrick should fall head over ears in love with her; she was exactly the sort of girl that would infallibly attract him. Her absence of shyness; her straightforward, easy way of talking; her genuine goodheartedness; her devotion to animals—one of his own pet hobbies—and finally her exquisite playing, made the result a foregone conclusion. And then, moreover, they were perpetually together. He would hang over the piano in the saloon for hours while she played, the rest of us lazily enjoying the easy chairs and the fresh air on deck; and whenever we landed, these two were sure in the end to be just a little apart from the rest of us.

It was an eminently successful cruise. We all liked each other; the sea was calm, the sunshine constant, the wind as a rule favourable, and I think I never in a single fortnight heard so many good stories, or had such a good time. We seemed to get right out of the world and its narrow restrictions, away from all that was hollow and base and depressing, only landing now and then at quaint little quiet places for some merry excursion on shore. Freda was in the highest spirits; and as to Derrick, he was a different creature. She seemed to have the power of drawing him out in a marvellous degree, and she took the greatest interest in his work—a sure way to every author’s heart.

But it was not till one day, when we landed at Tresco, that I felt certain she genuinely loved him—there in one glance the truth flashed upon me. I was walking with one of the gardeners down one of the long shady paths of that lovely little island, with its curiously foreign look, when we suddenly came face to face with Derrick and Freda. They were talking earnestly, and I could see her great grey eyes as they were lifted to his—perhaps they were more expressive than she knew—I cannot say. They both started a little as we confronted them, and the colour deepened in Freda’s face. The gardener, with what photographers usually ask for—‘just the faint beginning of a smile,’—turned and gathered a bit of white heather growing near.

“They say it brings good luck, miss,” he remarked, handing it to Freda.

“Thank you,” she said, laughing, “I hope it will bring it to me. At any rate it will remind me of this beautiful island. Isn’t it just like Paradise, Mr. Wharncliffe?”

“For me it is like Paradise before Eve was created,” I replied, rather wickedly. “By the bye, are you going to keep all the good luck to yourself?”

“I don’t know,” she said laughing. “Perhaps I shall; but you have only to ask the gardener, he will gather you another piece directly.”

I took good care to drop behind, having no taste for the third-fiddle business; but I noticed when we were in the gig once more, rowing back to the yacht, that the white heather had been equally divided—one half was in the waist-band of the blue serge dress, the other half in the button-hole of Derrick’s blazer.

So the fortnight slipped by, and at length one afternoon we found ourselves once more in Southampton Water; then came the bustle of packing and the hurry of departure, and the merry party dispersed. Derrick and I saw them all off at the station, for, as his father’s ship did not arrive till the following day, I made up my mind to stay on with him at Southampton.

“You will come and see us in town,” said Lady Probyn, kindly. And Lord Probyn invited us both for the shooting at Blachington in September. “We will have the same party on shore, and see if we can’t enjoy ourselves almost as well,” he said in his hearty way; “the novel will go all the better for it, eh, Vaughan?”

Derrick brightened visibly at the suggestion. I heard him talking to Freda all the time that Sir John stood laughing and joking as to the comparative pleasures of yachting and shooting.

“You will be there too?” Derrick asked.

“I can’t tell,” said Freda, and there was a shade of sadness in her tone. Her voice was deeper than most women’s voices—a rich contralto with something striking and individual about it. I could hear her quite plainly; but Derrick spoke less distinctly—he always had a bad trick of mumbling.

“You see I am the youngest,” she said, “and I am not really ‘out.’ Perhaps my mother will wish one of the elder ones to go; but I half think they are already engaged for September, so after all I may have a chance.”

Inaudible remark from my friend.

“Yes, I came here because my sisters did not care to leave London till the end of the season,” replied the clear contralto. “It has been a perfect cruise. I shall remember it all my life.”

After that, nothing more was audible; but I imagine Derrick must have hazarded a more personal question, and that Freda had admitted that it was not only the actual sailing she should remember. At any rate her face when I caught sight of it again made me think of the girl described in the ‘Biglow Papers’:

So the train went off, and Derrick and I were left to idle about Southampton and kill time as best we might. Derrick seemed to walk the streets in a sort of dream—he was perfectly well aware that he had met his fate, and at that time no thought of difficulties in the way had arisen either in his mind or in my own. We were both of us young and inexperienced; we were both of us in love, and we had the usual lover’s notion that everything in heaven and earth is prepared to favour the course of his particular passion.

I remember that we soon found the town intolerable, and, crossing by the ferry, walked over to Netley Abbey, and lay down idly in the shade of the old grey walls. Not a breath of wind stirred the great masses of ivy which were wreathed about the ruined church, and the place looked so lovely in its decay, that we felt disposed to judge the dissolute monks very leniently for having behaved so badly that their church and monastery had to be opened to the four winds of heaven. After all, when is a church so beautiful as when it has the green grass for its floor and the sky for its roof?

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.