"Horace is ill," says Miss Peyton, in a tone that might have suited the occasion had the skies just fallen. "Oh, Jim, what shall I do?"
"My dearest girl," says Scrope, going up to her and taking her hands.
"Yes, he is very ill! I had not heard from him for a fortnight, and was growing wretchedly uneasy, when to-day a letter came from Aunt Emily telling me he has been laid up with low fever for over ten days. And he is very weak, the doctor says, and no one is with him. And papa is in Paris, and Lord Sartoris is with Lady Monckton, and Dorian—no one knows where Dorian is!"
"Most extraordinary his never getting any one to write you a line!"
"Doesn't that only show how fearfully ill he must be? Jim, you will help me, won't you?"
This appeal is not to be put on one side.
"Of course I will," says Scrope: "you know that—or you ought. What do you want me to do?"
"To take me to him. I want to see him with my own eyes."
"To go yourself?" says Sir James, extreme disapprobation in his tone. "You must be out of your mind."
"I am not," returns she, indignantly. "I never was more in it. And I am going, any-way."