“Going to fish?” said Dexter eagerly.
“No, but I thought you’d like to now you was better,” said Peter. “There, you can fish as you sit there, and I’ll put on your bait, and take ’em off the hook.”
Dexter fished for half an hour, but he did not enjoy it, for he could not throw in his line without expecting to see Bob Dimsted on the other side. So he soon pleaded fatigue, and was wheeled out into the sunshine, and to the door of the vinery, up which he had scrambled when he first came to the doctor’s house.
A week later he was down at Chale, in the Isle of Wight, where the doctor had taken a house; and here, upon the warm sands, Dexter sat and lay day after day, drinking in the soft sea air, and gaining strength, while the doctor sat under an umbrella to think out fresh chapters for his book, and Helen either read to her invalid or worked.
Chapter Forty Eight.
The Proof of the Doctor’s Theory.
Three years, as every one knows, look like what they are—twenty-six thousand two hundred and eighty long hours from one side, and they look like nothing from the other. They had passed pleasantly and well, for the doctor had been so much pleased with his Isle of Wight house that he had taken it for three years, and transported there the whole of his household, excepting Dan’l, who was left in charge at Coleby.
“You see, my dear,” the doctor had said; “it’s a mistake for Dexter to be at Coleby until he has gone through what we may call his caterpillar stage. We’ll take him back a perfect—”