He bowed his head, partly in assent, partly to escape her piercing look.
“And you are no longer a schoolboy—you wear a sword. Oh, Frank, Frank! you—Andrew Forbes.”
He shook his head and bowed it down. Then he raised it firmly and proudly, and met his mother’s eyes gazing wildly at him now, as she tried to release her hands, but as he held them tightly, pressed them with her own against her throbbing breast.
“He told me to come to you as a man and break the news.”
“He—your father—told you—to break the news. Ah, I see it all. A quarrel—and they have fought—but he bade you come. Then he lives!”
“Yes, yes, mother dear. He is wounded, but very slightly in the arm.”
Lady Gowan uttered a low, piteous cry, and sank upon her knees beside her son, with her lips moving quickly for some moments, as he supported her where they knelt together.
“Wounded—dangerously?” she moaned.
“No, no; believe me, mother, slightly in his sword arm. He walked back with me.”
“To his quarters?”