In Honour's Cause Part 61

"My poor boy!" she said tenderly.

"No, no; don't you believe it, madam!" he cried. "It is not--it can't be true. Some enemy has told you this."

"No," said the Princess gently, "no enemy, my boy. It was told me by one who knows too well. I had it from your mother's lips."

Frank gazed at her blankly, and his eyes then grew full of reproach, as they seemed to say, "How can you, who are her friend, believe such a thing?"

"There boy," said the Prince, interposing; "come here."

Frank turned to him, and his eyes flashed.

"Don't look like that," continued the Prince. "I am not angry with you now. I believe you, and I like your brave, honest way in defending your father. But you see how all this is true."

"No!" cried the boy firmly. "Your Royal Highness and the Princess have been deceived. Some one has brought a lying report to my poor mother, who ought to have been the last to believe it. I cannot and will not think it is true."

"Very well," said the Prince quietly. "You can go on believing that it is not. I wish, my boy, I could. There, you can go back to your duties. You will not go over to the enemy, I see."

The boy looked at the speaker as if about to make some angry speech; but his emotions strangled him, and, forgetting all etiquette, he turned and hurried from the room.

"Look after him, Captain Murray," said the Prince quietly; "true gold is too valuable to be lost."

The captain bowed, and hurried into the antechamber; but Frank had gone, one of the gentlemen in attendance saying that he had rushed through the chamber as if he had been half mad, and leaped down the stairs three or four at a time.

"Gone straight to his mother," thought the captain; and he went on down the staircase, frowning and sad, for he was sick at heart about the news he had that morning learned of his old friend.

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

FRANK'S FAITH.

Frank went straight to his mother's apartments.

"I don't think my lady is well enough to see you to-day, sir," said her woman.

"Tell her I must see her," cried the boy pa.s.sionately; and a few minutes after, looking very white and strange, Lady Gowan entered the room.

She looked inquiringly in the boy's eyes, and a faint sob escaped her lips as she caught him in her arms, kissed him pa.s.sionately, and then laid her head upon his shoulder, while for some minutes she sobbed so violently that the boy dared not speak, but tried to caress her into calmness once more.

"Oh, Frank, Frank!" she sighed at last; and he held her more tightly to his breast.

"I was obliged to come, mother," he said; "and now that I have come I dare not speak."

"Yes, speak, dear, speak; say anything to me now," she sighed.

"But it seems so cruel, mother, while you are ill like this!"

"Speak, dear, speak. I ought to have sent to you before; but I was so heart-broken, so cowardly and weak, that I dared not confess it even to my own child."

"Mother," cried the boy pa.s.sionately, "it is not true."

Lady Gowan heaved a piteous sigh.

"The Prince sent for me, thinking I helped Drew Forbes to escape."

"Ah! He has escaped?"

"Yes, gone to join his father with the rebels; but the Prince believes me now. He asked me first if I were going to join my father with the rebels too."

"And--and--what did you say?" faltered Lady Gowan.

"I?" cried the boy proudly. "I told him that he had no more faithful servant living than my father, though he was dismissed from the Guards."

Lady Gowan uttered a weary sigh once more.

"Oh, mother!" cried Frank, "shame on you to believe this miserable lie!

How can you be so weak!"

"Ah, Frank, Frank, Frank!" she sighed wearily.

"It seems too horrible to imagine that you could so readily think such a thing. The Prince believes it, and the Princess too, and she said the news came from you."

"Yes, dear, I was obliged to tell her. Frank, my boy, I knew it when I saw you last--when I was in such trouble, and spoke so angrily to you.

I could not, oh, I could not tell you then."

"No. I am very glad you could not, mother," said the boy firmly. "You cannot, and you shall not, believe it. Can't you see that it is impossible? There, don't speak to me; don't think about it any more.

You are weak and ill, and that makes you ready to think things which you would laugh at as absurd at another time. Oh, I wish I had said what I ought to have said to the Prince," he cried excitedly. "I did not think of it then."

"What--what would you have said?" cried Lady Gowan, raising her pale, drawn face to gaze in her son's eyes.

"That he could soon prove my father's truth by sending him orders to come back and take his place in the regiment."

"Ah!" sighed Lady Gowan; and she let her head fall once more upon her son's shoulder.

Frank started impatiently.

"Oh!" he cried, "and you will go on believing it. There, I can't be angry with you now, you are so ill; but try and believe the truth, mother. Father is the King's servant, and he would not--he could not break his oaths. There, you will see the truth when you get better; and you must, you must get better now. It was this news which made you so ill?"

"Yes, my boy, yes," she said, in a faint whisper; "and I blame myself for not going with him. If I had been by his side, he would not have changed."

"He has not changed, mother," said the lad firmly. "But how did you get the news?"

"It came through Andrew Forbes's father--Mr George Selby, as he calls himself now. He sent it to--to one of the gentlemen in the Palace. I must not mention names."

"Ha--ha--ha!" laughed Frank scornfully. "I thought it was some miserable, hatched-up lie. Mr George Selby has been playing a contemptible, spy-like part, trying to gain over people in the Palace.

He and his party tried to get me to join them."

"You, my boy?" cried Lady Gowan, in wonder; "and you did not tell me."