“You have no right to question me, sir,” said Lady Gowan haughtily; “but, to end this interview, I will answer your question. I do not know.”
“Your ladyship tells me that?” cried the officer quickly.
“I refuse to be questioned by you, sir,” said Lady Gowan with dignity. “You are in the King’s Guards; you have a duty to perform. I am helpless at this moment. Pray do it, and go. But I insist, in the name of the lady whom I have the honour to serve, that you do not go without leaving a proper guard to protect this house from pillage by the mob outside.”
The officer looked puzzled and confused for a moment or two, and then he spoke again sharply.
“I am bound to take your ladyship’s word,” he said; “but you know!” he cried, turning suddenly upon Frank, and so fiercely intended as to throw him off his guard. “Come, sir; it is of no use to prevaricate. Where is Sir Robert?”
But Frank was as firm as his mother, and he met the young officer’s eyes without flinching.
“Where is my father?” he said quietly. “I don’t know, and if I did I wouldn’t tell you.”
A flush of anger suffused the young Guardsman’s face; but the boy’s manner touched him home, and the anger passed away in a laugh.
“Well,” he said, “that’s not a bad answer. Unfortunately, young gentleman, I can’t be satisfied with it.—Lady Gowan, I regret having this duty placed in my hands to carry out, but I must perform it. I am compelled to disbelieve you and your son, and search the house.”
“Do your duty then, sir,” said Lady Gowan coldly; “but I cannot stay here to submit to the insult. I insist upon my house being protected.”