“The Prince sent for me, thinking I helped Drew Forbes to escape.”
“Ah! He has escaped?”
“Yes, gone to join his father with the rebels; but the Prince believes me now. He asked me first if I were going to join my father with the rebels too.”
“And—and—what did you say?” faltered Lady Gowan.
“I?” cried the boy proudly. “I told him that he had no more faithful servant living than my father, though he was dismissed from the Guards.”
Lady Gowan uttered a weary sigh once more.
“Oh, mother!” cried Frank, “shame on you to believe this miserable lie! How can you be so weak!”
“Ah, Frank, Frank, Frank!” she sighed wearily.
“It seems too horrible to imagine that you could so readily think such a thing. The Prince believes it, and the Princess too, and she said the news came from you.”
“Yes, dear, I was obliged to tell her. Frank, my boy, I knew it when I saw you last—when I was in such trouble, and spoke so angrily to you. I could not, oh, I could not tell you then.”