Lady Markham bowed her head. She could not trust herself to speak, for her son’s words had set his going in a new light. But she still hesitated, clinging first to father, then to son, and ending by exclaiming—
“Heaven’s will be done! I can say no more.”
“No, mother. Let me go, and I will do all I can to protect my father.”
She gazed piteously at him through her tears, and then cast herself sobbing upon his breast, while Sir Godfrey gravely set his daughter by her mother’s side, and laid his hand upon her head.
“Scarlett is right, dearest. He can do more good by embracing his father’s profession at once. He will learn to be a soldier, and—perhaps—he may be able to protect me. Who can tell!”
Lady Markham took and kissed her husband’s hand, and then once more embraced her son, ending by taking her daughter to her heart, and weeping over her silently, while Sir Godfrey paced the room.
“Yes, my boy?” he said suddenly, as he caught his son’s eye.
“When shall you start, father?”
“To-morrow at the latest. Quite early in the morning, if we can get away.”
“So soon?”