A tall figure with brown hair touched with grey about the temples was coming down the path towards the bowling green. Sydney sprang to her feet and went to meet him, Hugh following her closely.
Lord St. Quentin too was listening to the bells, with a smile upon the face that had nearly lost its cynical expression. “But I feel almost as if the little beggar were doing you an injury, Sydney,” he said, laying his hand upon the girl’s slight shoulder as she joined him.
“You are not to say that!” she cried. “Do you think there is any one more glad and happy than I am to-day? Oh, St. Quentin, if you only knew how glad I am to be disinherited!”
He looked down at her glowing face, then turned from hers to Hugh’s. The light of comprehension dawned in his eyes.
“Upon my word!” he exclaimed as sternly as he could. “What mischief have you two been doing now?”
“Well,” Sydney said audaciously, looking up into his face, that she had grown so fond of, “you see, you forbade me to look upon Hugh as a brother any longer—and—and I always try to obey you.”
“When I heard at Donisbro’ this morning that she was safely out of the succession, I couldn’t wait,” Hugh said. “There was just time to catch the next train, and I caught it!”
The corners of St. Quentin’s mouth twitched, and after one or two attempts to look serious, he gave it up and laughed outright.
“You are a nice pair!” he said. “If it weren’t for the fact that Katharine is sure to be upon the side of true love, and that you, Sydney, always insist upon your own way, I’d play the stern guardian, and send Master Hugh to the right-about!”
“But of course you are not going to do anything so absolutely horrid,” Sydney said with confidence. “You’re going to take him in to see the baby.”