“Estate of the Marquess of St. Quentin,” his companion commented. “Isn’t that the chap who had that frightful motor-smash three months ago? Why, hullo! Chichester, old man! Are you off your head?”
For Hugh had flung himself into the lift without a word, and was swooping upward to the first floor, where he knew that he would find his father.
The doctor was free for the moment, but Hugh knew that he himself was not. He only paused to thrust the paper in his father’s hand, with a hoarse “Read that,” and was down the staircase and in the hall again, before the “case,” upon its stretcher, had crossed the wide open paved courtyard of the Blue-friars Hospital.
Dr. Chichester was quick of understanding, as doctors generally are.
“You want to go to Blankshire, my boy?” he said, when he and his son met for their hastily-snatched luncheon.
“Yes, father.”
“I think it may be possible,” the doctor said. “Help is certainly needed, to judge from the papers, and I would not hold you back. But, my boy, you must remember it may mean the loss of your post here, unless the Hospital elects to send you to Blankshire.”
Hugh nodded.
“And, Hugh,” his father went on, “you must give me your word that you keep away from Sydney. It won’t be easy, but I know that I can trust you to think of her and not yourself. You want to spare her from suffering what you suffer. You will prove yourself her true ‘servant’ in this, as ‘Dorothy Osborne’ would say to us. If you can trust yourself to keep clear of intercourse with her, I think that you are right to volunteer your services. I should have done so myself years ago.”