Sydney ran downstairs to ask if Mr. Seaton were walking, and to offer the pony-carriage. The Vicar was looking very tired and grave, and seemed in a hurry to be off. He said he had been visiting in the village all the afternoon: there was a great deal of illness about. “I think you must discontinue your working-party for a week or two, Miss Lisle,” he said. “Dr. Lorry thinks Mrs. Sawyer is suffering from some kind of low fever; the same thing which seems prevalent in Loam. Don’t go into her cottage for a day or two, at all events, till we see how things are. I am keeping Pauly from the village now.”
Declining the offer of the pony-carriage, he took his small son, quiet now that he had got his daddy, and still clasping Carlo, in his arms, and the two went out together.
CHAPTER XX
HUGH TO THE RESCUE
“Fever epidemic in Blankshire. Medical help urgently required. The villages specially affected by the fever, are Loam, Hurstleigh, Marston, Styles, and Lislehurst—all on the estate of the Marquess of St. Quentin.
“The epidemic is of a very serious nature. The Chief Sanitary Inspector of Donisbro’ visited the affected villages upon the outbreak of the illness, and declares the cottages to be in a greatly neglected condition.
“The local physician has applied for help to the staff of the London Hospitals.”
Hugh Chichester read these words in the hall of the Blue-friars Hospital, as he and another young doctor waited for a “case,” which was being brought in from the street.