“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?”