Sydney wrote obediently, but with rebellion in her heart.
“I regret to find myself unable to take a class in your Sunday School,” dictated Lord St. Quentin. “Yours faithfully, Sydney Lisle.”
But Sydney paused before the “yours faithfully” and faced round with troubled eyes.
“He was very kind to me, and that sounds rather rude, doesn’t it? Mayn’t I just put something else before the signature, for politeness?”
“Oh, say your brute of a cousin won’t allow you to do anything you want,” the marquess suggested, with a rather mocking smile.
Sydney reddened, and, without remark, finished the letter that he had dictated. Then she directed the envelope to “The Rev. Paul Seaton,” and, rising, put it in her cousin’s hand. “I couldn’t say a thing like that, you know,” she said, and he noticed that the childish figure had a dignity of its own. “Shall I ring for one of the footmen to take it to the Vicarage?” she added.
“I will,” said her cousin rather sharply, reaching out his arm. His couch stood rather farther off from the bell than usual, and he turned a little on his side in the attempt to reach it. The next moment Sydney saw him fall back with a stifled exclamation of suffering, while his face grew ashen and his brows contracted. She sprang forward. “Ring twice for Dickson,” he gasped, “and go!”
She pealed the bell furiously, then, with a remembrance of father, looked on the little table beside him.
Yes, sure enough, there was the bottle with, “Five drops to be taken in water when the pain is acute.”
The water was there all ready. She held it to her cousin’s lips, raising his head carefully. “It is the stuff in the blue bottle, Cousin St. Quentin. Dickson said you took it when the pain was bad.”