“Gone?” he echoed.
“He left a letter,” she continued. “Perhaps I had better read you a part of it.” She took a letter out of her pocket, and turned as he noticed, past the first page to the second. She read:
“So I’ve taken this job in the airplane factory. It’s a remarkably good job, and I expect to do rather more than well. I’m sorry, my dearest girl, to disappoint you so after all you’ve done for me, but, to be frank, I can’t be a doctor. I always hated the whole thing. I’d never have been any good at it. Now I’ve found the one thing I am good at. I think you know how I felt about Nesta Lorrimer, and now I see some faint chance of being able to speak to her some day.
“Try to forgive me, Judith. It is really the best and kindest thing I can do for you—to clear out and leave you free.
“That’s all that matters,” she ended. “So you see—”
Her look amazed and angered him terribly. She seemed so sure that he would understand and sympathize. She wasn’t a child, she was very far from slow-witted, and she must have seen how it was with him. And now this!
Try to forgive me, Judith. It is the best and kindest thing I can do for you—to clear out and leave you free.
Such bitterness and pain overwhelmed him that he could scarcely speak.
“I’d rather—go now,” he said. “Another time—I can’t—”
“But—” she began.