"That's a great comfort to know," Pendleton answered heartily. "If one's head is right, the rest will soon come around."
"Yes—yes," said Lorraine. "I'll be out of this in a week." He glanced impatiently toward the nurse, who was standing in the window. "I'll be out in a week," he repeated.—"Miss Sayles, will you excuse Mr. Pendleton and me a moment—I'll call you when we're through.—It will take only a very short time."
"I'll be in the corridor," the nurse smiled—with a glance at Pendleton, which he understood as a warning not to stay too long.
Lorraine waited until Miss Sayles had gone out and closed the door quietly behind her, then he said:—
"I haven't much time, nor have you any to waste, so I'll not beat around the bush, Pendleton—we'll cut the preliminaries and come down to the facts——"
He paused, and Pendleton wondered what was coming. Was he about to make a scene because of anything he had heard in regard to Stephanie?
"It's this way," Lorraine went on:—"I don't know whether you know it or not, but I fancy you do.—I've made an infernal damn fool of myself in the way I've treated Stephanie. I see it all now. I've been lying here and thinking, and thinking, with nothing else to do, and it's perfectly plain, perfectly plain. It was all my fault originally. I had her—and I lost her—and I've no one but myself to blame in the first instance. If I'd been careful of her—had appreciated her—she would have had no occasion to make a mistake. Amherst wouldn't have had a chance to work his smooth way with her. Damn Amherst! I could choke the life out of him—damn him! damn him!"
"Don't excite yourself, Lorraine," Pendleton cautioned. "Why not leave this matter until you are better and able to be about?"
"No—I must say it now. It will do me good to say it. I'll try not to get excited. I'm not excited now—see?" He held up an unsteady hand. "At least, not much. We'll let Amherst rest, for the moment. I'll handle him when I'm quite fit—if I can ever find him. Do you think I'll find him, Pendleton?"
"Certainly you will find him," Montague answered soothingly. "And now you wait and tell me all this some other time—to-morrow."