In Honour's Cause Part 52

"Yes, mother; you know how I think of you. I couldn't help it."

"Shame! Could not help it! Is this the result of your education--you, growing toward manhood--my son to tell me this unblushingly, to give me this pitiful excuse--you could not help it? Why was it, sir?"

"Well, mother, we quarrelled. Drew is so hot-tempered and pa.s.sionate."

"And you are perfectly innocent, and free from all such attributes, I suppose, sir," cried Lady Gowan sarcastically.

"Oh no, I'm not, mother," said the lad bluntly, as he felt he would give anything to get away. "I've got a nasty, pa.s.sionate temper; but I'm all right if it isn't roused and Drew will keep on till he rouses it."

"Pitiful! Worse and worse!" cried Lady Gowan. "All this arose, I suppose, out of some contemptible piece of banter or teasing. He said something to you, then, that you did not like?"

"Yes," said Frank eagerly, "that was it."

"And pray what did he say?"

"Say--oh--er--he said--oh, it was nothing much."

"Speak out--the truth, sir," cried Lady Gowan, fixing her eyes upon her son's.

"Oh, he said--something I did not like, mother."

"What was it, sir? I insist upon knowing."

"Oh, it was nothing much."

"Let me be the judge of that, sir. I, as your mother, would be only too glad to find that you had some little excuse for such conduct."

"And then," continued Frank hurriedly, "I got put out, and--and I called him a liar."

"What was it he said?"

"And then he struck me over the face with his glove, mother, and I couldn't stand that, and I hit out, and sent him staggering against the wall."

"Why?--what for?" insisted Lady Gowan.

"And in a moment he whipped out his sword and attacked me, and of course I had to draw, or he would have run me through."

"Is that true, sir--Andrew Forbes drew on you first?"

"Of course it's true, mother," said the lad proudly. "Did I ever tell you a lie?"

"Never, my boy," said Lady Gowan firmly. "It has been my proud boast to myself that I could trust my son in everything."

"Then why did you ask me in that doubting way if it was true?"

"Because my son is prevaricating with me, and speaking in a strange, evasive way. He never spoke to me like that before. Do you think me blind, Frank? Do you think that I, upon whom your tiny eyes first opened--your mother, who has watched you with all a mother's love from your birth, cannot read every change in your countenance? Do you think I cannot see that you are fighting hard to keep something back?--you, whom I have always been so proud to think were as frank by nature as you are by name? Come, be honest with me. You are hiding something from me?"

"Yes, mother," cried the lad, throwing back his head and speaking defiantly now, "I am."

"Then tell me what it is at once. I am your mother, from whom nothing should be hid. If the matter is one for which you feel shame, if it is some wrong-doing, the more reason that you should come to me, my boy, and confide in me, that I may take you once again to my heart, and kneel with you, that we may together pray for forgiveness and the strength to be given to save you from such another sin."

"Mother," cried the boy pa.s.sionately, "I have not sinned in this!"

"Ah!--Then what is it?"

"I cannot tell you."

"Frank, if ever there was a time when mother and son should be firmly tied in mutual confidence, it is now. I have no one to cling to but you, and you hold me at a distance like this."

"Yes, yes; but I cannot tell you."

"You think so, my boy; but don't keep it from me."

"Mother," cried Frank wildly, "I must!"

"You shall not, my boy. I will know."

"I cannot tell you."

He held out his hands to her imploringly, but she drew back from him, and her eyes seemed to draw the truth he strove so hard to keep hidden from his unwilling lips.

"There, then!" he cried pa.s.sionately; "I bore it as long as I could: because he insulted my father--it was to defend his honour that I struck him, and we fought."

"You drew to defend your father's honour," said Lady Gowan hoa.r.s.ely; and her face looked drawn and her lips white.

"Yes, that was it. Is it so childish of me to say that I could not help that?"

"No," said Lady Gowan, in a painful whisper. "How did he insult your father? What did he say?"

"Must I tell you?"

"Yes."

Frank drew a long, deep, sobbing breath, and his voice sounded broken and strange, as he said in a low, pa.s.sionate voice:

"He dared to insult my father--he said he was false to the King--that he had broken his oath as a soldier--that he was a miserable rebel and Jacobite, and had gone over to the Pretender's side."

"Oh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Lady Gowan, shrinking back into the corner of the couch, and covering her face with her hands.

"Mother, forgive me!" cried the lad, throwing himself upon his knees, and trying to draw her hands from her face. "I could not speak. It seemed so horrible to have to tell you such a cruel slander as that. I could not help it. I should have struck at anybody who said it, even if it had been the Prince himself."

Lady Gowan let her son draw her hands from her white, drawn face, and sat back gazing wildly in his eyes.

"Oh, mother!" he cried piteously, "can you think this a sin? Don't look at me like that."

She uttered a pa.s.sionate cry, clasped him to her breast, and let her face sink upon his shoulder, sobbing painfully the while.

"I knew what pain it would give you, dear," he whispered, with his lips to her ear; "but you made me tell you. I was obliged to fight him.