She was by no means unwilling to leave him for the more cheerful company of a novel in her own private sitting-room, where the fire was bright and the chairs very comfortable. Left once more to himself, he snatched up a pen, took a fresh sheet of paper, and began again, “Dear Fane”; then paused.
Sydney’s words on Christmas Day kept rising up before him, instead of those which he meant to write.
“Can you do nothing for the cottages?”
“Nothing,” he said half aloud; “and yet—she thought me brave!”
His letter had progressed no further when Dickson came in an hour later, as the short winter’s afternoon drew towards its close. With an exclamation at the cold, the man wheeled his master’s couch to the fire, which he stirred noiselessly into a blaze, brought him some tea, and lit his reading-lamp.
“Miss Lisle in yet?” asked St. Quentin.
“I will enquire, my lord.” This was Dickson’s almost invariable answer.
“Miss Lisle has not yet returned, my lord,” he informed St. Quentin after a voyage in search of her.
“Ask her to come to me when she does.”
“Yes, my lord.” Dickson closed the door softly, and St. Quentin was left alone. He made no attempt to go on with his letter, but stared idly in the fire, listening intently. In about ten minutes the door opened and Sir Algernon strolled in.