“That’s good news,” cried Andrew. “I wish he’d take the King and his court with him.”
Frank gave him an angry look, then a sharp glance round to see if his companion’s words had been heard, and the latter burst out laughing.
“Poor old Frank!” he said merrily. “There, I won’t tease you by saying all these disloyal things. But, I say, your acts give the lie to your words. You’re as true to us as steel. Come, don’t be cross.”
This sort of skirmishing went on often enough, for the two lads were always at work trying to undermine each other’s principles; but they dropped into the habit of leaving off at the right time, so as to avoid quarrelling, and the days glided on in the regular routine of the court. But a great change had taken place in one who so short a time before was a mere schoolboy, and Lady Gowan could not help remarking it in the rather rare occasions when she had her son alone, and talked to him and made him the repository of her troubles.
“I could not bear all this, Frank,” she said one day, “if it were not for the Princess’s kindness. Some day we shall have your father forgiven, and he will be back.”
“But some day is so long coming, mother. Why don’t we go to him?”
“Because he wishes us to stay here, and he will not expose me to the miseries and uncertainties of the life he is leading.”
“But we would not mind,” cried Frank.
“No, we would not mind; but we must do that which he wishes, my dear.”
This was three months after Sir Robert’s enforced departure from the court, and when Andrew Forbes’s words respecting the communications sent by Sir Robert being stopped had long proved to be unjust.