"I am glad. Error is telling me I cannot move my legs and arms, Auntie. But it is not true. God’s child cannot be bound like that. Does Cousin Alicia know?" "I am sorry, Carol. I fear no one has thought to send her word." "Will you send word now, Auntie--something quicker than a letter?" "A telegram, dear?" "Yes, Auntie, and put in, ’Please help Carol’." "I will ask Uncle to send the message at once, dear." When she opened the bedroom door, she found Colonel Mandeville pacing the corridor without. As a sentinel he had kept watch there throughout the night and a great part of the morning. He came into the room, and stood with one arm around his wife, looking down at Carol. "Well, little man, so we are going to cheat the doctors?" Carol didn’t at all know what ’cheat’ meant. "Carol wishes you to let Miss Desmond know, dear. Will you wire at once? And say in the message, ’Please help Carol.’ She will know what he means." "I will gladly do so. Dr. Burton is downstairs, Emmeline. He had better come up now." An expression of distress came over Carol’s face. "Auntie," he said, "don’t let the doctor do anything to me, please." "No one shall touch you, dear. But I should like Dr. Burton just to see you. He will tell me what I may give you to eat." "I don’t want anything, Auntie, only something to drink." "Well, dear, he will tell me what will be best for you to have." "I would like only water, please." "You shall have some, dear, at once, and after that something else, I hope." Dr. Burton came to the room, felt the patient’s pulse, took his temperature, and looked at his tongue, but mercifully refrained from turning him about, to examine the bruises. "I will send some medicine at once," he said to Mrs. Mandeville. "Give him a dose every hour. He has a very high temperature." Downstairs he told Colonel Mandeville: "He may pull through if meningitis does not supervene." But he left the house holding a very strong belief that meningitis would supervene. Not even the medicine, which was to be given every hour, could prevent it. CHAPTER XIII.--THE RECTOR’S REFUSAL. Mrs. Mandeville remained with Carol throughout the day, suffering no one to relieve her for one hour. As soon as he was told the telegram had been sent to Miss Desmond, he rested quite satisfied. But as the day wore on to evening, Mrs. Mandeville, standing over him, saw he was suffering acutely. "You are in pain, darling," she said. "Auntie, please don’t ask me. I am trying to deny it. Couldn’t you deny it for me, too?" His lips were quivering; tears he strove bravely to keep back were stealing down his cheeks. How could she deny it? She would have given anything to be able to do so. "Cousin Alicia must have had the telegram by this, Auntie, mustn’t she?"