“Ring the bell,” he panted thickly, with an incoherent gesture. “Nelson knows. Ring!”
Nelson evidently knew. He brought brandy and water from the sideboard with no stinting hand, and within ten minutes Mr. Carewe was in his accustomed seat, competent to finish his breakfast. In solitude, however, he sat, and no one guessed his thoughts.
For Miss Betty had fled to her own room, and had bolted the door. She lay upon the bed, shuddering and shivering with nausea and cold, though the day was warm. Then, like a hot pain in her breast, came a homesickness for St. Mary's, and the flood-tide of tears, as she thought of the quiet convent in the sunshine over to the west, the peace of it, and the goodness of everybody there.
“Sister Cecilia!” Her shoulders shook with the great sob that followed this name, dearest to her in the world, convulsively whispered to the pil-low “Dear Sister Cecilia!” She patted the white pillow with her hand, as though it were the cool cheek against which she yearned to lay her own. “Ah, you would know—you would know!” With the thought of the serene face of the good Sister, and of the kind arms that would have gone round her in her trouble, her sobbing grew loud and uncontrollable. But she would not have her father hear it, and buried her face deep in the pillow. After a time, she began to grow quieter, turned, and lay with wet eyes staring unseeingly at the wall, her underlip quivering with the deep intake of each broken sigh.
“Oh, stars, stars, stars!” she whispered.
“Missy?” There came a soft knock upon the door and the clink of silver upon china. “Missy?”
“What is it?”
So quick was Miss Betty that, although she answered almost at once, the tears were washed away, and she was passing a cool, wet towel over her eyes at the moment she spoke.
“Jass me. I brung yo' breakfas', honey.”
Old Nelson's voice was always low and gentle, with a quaver and hesitancy in the utterance; now it was tender and comforting with the comprehension of one in suffering, the extraordinary tact, which the old of his race nearly all come to possess. “Li'l chicken-wing on piece brown toast, honey.”