"With regard to the depot," remarked Vane grimly, "you may take it from me that I don't. . . . Ten days . . . twelve—fourteen." He was counting on his fingers. "Oh! Hell. . . ."
"They forwarded some letters for you," said the doctor. "I'll get them for you. . . ."
"Thanks," said Vane. "When is the next train to London?"
"In about four days' time as far as you're concerned," laughed the other.
He went out of the room, and Vane lay very still. Fourteen days. . . .
Fourteen days. . . .
The doctor returned and handed him about a dozen letters.
"They've been coming at intervals," he remarked. "I'm going to send you up a cup of bovril in a minute. . . ."
Vane turned them over rapidly in his hand, and found that there were only two that counted. He looked at the postmarks to get them in the right sequence, and eagerly pulled out the contents of the first. It had been written four days after he left Melton.
"Dear lad, I'm leaving here to-morrow, and am going back to Blandford; but before I go I want to tell you something. A man is not a very good judge of a woman's actions at any time; he's so apt to see them through his own eyes. He reasons, and becomes logical, . . . and perhaps he's right. But a woman doesn't want reasons or logic—not if she's in love. She wants to be whirled up breathlessly and carried away, and made to do things; and it doesn't matter whether they're right or wrong—not if she's in love. Maybe you were right, Derek, to go away; but oh! my dear, I would to God you hadn't."
A nurse came in with a cup of bovril, and put it on the table by his bed, and Vane turned to her abruptly.