Are you overcome by the heat?
Shall I take you into the next room ?" Sydney expressed her sincere sense of the lady's kindness.

Her commonplace excuse was a true excuse--she had a headache; and she asked leave to retire to her room.
Approaching the door, she found herself face to face with Mr.Linley.
He had just been giving directions to one of the servants, and was re-entering the drawing-room.

She stopped, trembling and cold; but, in the very intensity of her wretchedness, she found courage enough to speak to him.
"You seem to avoid me, Mr.Linley," she began, addressing him with ceremonious respect, and keeping her eyes on the ground.

"I hope--" she hesitated, and desperately looked at him--"I hope I haven't done anything to offend you ?" In her knowledge of him, up to that miserable evening, he constantly spoke to her with a smile.

She had never yet seen him so serious and so inattentive as he was now.