In Honour's Cause Part 28

"Well," said Lady Gowan, taking his hand to hold it firmly between her own.

But he was still silent.

"I am angry, and cruelly disappointed in you, Frank," she said sternly.

"But your repentance has been quick, and you have done what is right.

There, I will forgive you, on your solemn promise that you will not again sin like this. I will give you the money to pay the miserable debt, and if I have not enough I will get it, even if I have to sell my diamonds."

She looked at him as it expecting now a burst of repentant thanks; but he remained speechless, and a feeling of resentment against him rose in Lady Gowan's breast, as she felt that this was not the return the boy should have made to her gentle reproof, her offer to free him from his difficulty, and her eyes flashed upon him angrily.

"Oh, mother!" he cried, "don't look at me like that."

"I must, Frank," she said, loosing his hand, "you are not meeting me in this matter as you should."

"No, no," he cried, finding his tongue now, and catching her hands in his, as he sank on his knees before her. "Don't shrink from me, though it does seem so cruel of me."

"More cruel, my boy, than you think," she said, as she resigned her hands to him lovingly once more. "Speak out to me, then. It is what I fear?"

"Oh no, no, mother darling," he groaned. "I must speak now. It is far worse than that."

"Worse!" she cried, with a startled look in her eyes. "Some quarrel?"

He bowed his head, partly in a.s.sent, partly to escape her piercing look.

"And you are no longer a schoolboy--you wear a sword. Oh, Frank, Frank!

you--Andrew Forbes."

He shook his head and bowed it down. Then he raised it firmly and proudly, and met his mother's eyes gazing wildly at him now, as she tried to release her hands, but as he held them tightly, pressed them with her own against her throbbing breast.

"He told me to come to you as a man and break the news."

"He--your father--told you--to break the news. Ah, I see it all. A quarrel--and they have fought--but he bade you come. Then he lives!"

"Yes, yes, mother dear. He is wounded, but very slightly in the arm."

Lady Gowan uttered a low, piteous cry, and sank upon her knees beside her son, with her lips moving quickly for some moments, as he supported her where they knelt together.

"Wounded--dangerously?" she moaned.

"No, no; believe me, mother, slightly in his sword arm. He walked back with me."

"To his quarters?"

"No. He was arrested."

"Ah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Lady Gowan. "Arrested--why?"

Frank hastily explained.

"Oh the horror of these meetings! But this man, your father struck him?

But why?"

Frank repeated his father's message, and Lady Gowan looked bewildered.

"I cannot understand," she said. "These German officers are favourites of the King, and the baron must have cruelly insulted your father, or he, who is so brave and strong and gentle, would never have done this.

They are proud and overbearing, and I know treat our English officers with contempt. Yes, it must have been from that. When was it?"

"At daybreak."

"Where?"

"Just yonder in the Park."

"And your father took you?" said Lady Gowan, with a look of horror.

"No, no, mother; he did not know I was there till it was just over, and he told me how it was."

"Yes, I see."

"I was horrified and frightened when Drew came and told me. I could not keep away."

"No," she said softly, "of course not. I should have gone myself had I known. But your good, brave father wounded, and the man who insulted him escaped unhurt!"

"No, no, mother; he is--"

"Frank! Not dead?" she cried in horror, for the boy stopped.

"No, no; but very dangerously wounded. The soldiers carried him back on a litter, but the doctor says that he will live."

Once more, while she knelt there, Lady Gowan's lips moved as her eyes closed, and she bent down her head above her son's shoulder.

At last she raised it, and said, firmly:

"We must be brave over this terrible misfortune, Frank dear. But tell me; do I know the worst?"

"Yes, yes, mother; I meant to keep a great deal back, and I can't look in your eyes, and say anything that is not perfectly true."

"And never will, my son," she cried, with a wildly hysterical burst of tears, which she checked in a few moments. "There, your mother is very weak, you see, dear; but I am going to be strong now. Then that explains the sternness of the arrest. Let us look the matter in the face. Your father struck this German n.o.bleman, the guest of the regiment. They fought this morning, and the cause of the trouble is badly hurt. The King and the Prince will be furious. They will look upon it as a mutinous attack upon one of their favourites. Yes, I must see the Princess at once. I will go to her chamber now; so leave me, my boy, and wait. I will write to you, and I must try and get a note to your father. There, go, my own brave boy, and be comforted. The trouble may not be so great after all, for we have a friend who loves us both--the Princess, and she will help me in my sore distress. There, go, my boy; she must have the news from me, as your father contrived that it should come to me. I can go to her chamber at any time, for she has told me again and again that she looks upon me as her dearest friend."

The next minute Frank was crossing the quadrangle on his way back, feeling relieved of much of his burden; but before he reached the quarters occupied by the royal pages, Andrew Forbes stood before him.

"At last!" he said. "I've been waiting here ever since. How does she take it?"

"Bravely," said Frank, with a proud look. "She has just gone in to tell the Princess."

"And she will get Sir Robert out of the sc.r.a.pe if she can. But it won't do, Frank," said Andrew, shaking his head. "She'll be very kind to your mother, but you may as well know the worst. She can't; for his Majesty will have something to say about his baron. Your father might as well have hit the King himself."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.