“To bed!” said Frank reproachfully. “No. I have the worst to come.”
“What, are you going to challenge one of the Germans? I’ll second you.”
“Don’t be so flippant. There, good-bye for the present.”
“Good-bye be hanged! You’re in trouble, and I’m going to stick to you like a man.”
“Yes, I know you will, Drew; but let me go alone now.”
“What for? Where are you going? You’re not going to be so stupid as to begin petitioning, and all that sort of nonsense, to get your father off?”
“No,” said Frank, with his lower lip quivering; “he’ll fight his own battle. I’ve got a message from him for my mother, and I have to break the news to her.”
Andrew Forbes uttered a low, soft whistle, and nodded his head.
“Before she gets some muddled story, not half true. I say, tell her not to be frightened and upset. Sir Robert shan’t come to harm. Why, we could raise all London if they were to be queer to him. But take my word for it, they won’t be.”
Frank hardly heard his last words, for they were now in the calm, retired quadrangle of the Palace, one side of which was devoted to the apartments of the ladies in attendance upon the Queen and Princess, and the lad went straight to the door leading to his mother’s rooms, and rang.