“No. I am very glad you could not, mother,” said the boy firmly. “You cannot, and you shall not, believe it. Can’t you see that it is impossible? There, don’t speak to me; don’t think about it any more. You are weak and ill, and that makes you ready to think things which you would laugh at as absurd at another time. Oh, I wish I had said what I ought to have said to the Prince,” he cried excitedly. “I did not think of it then.”
“What—what would you have said?” cried Lady Gowan, raising her pale, drawn face to gaze in her son’s eyes.
“That he could soon prove my father’s truth by sending him orders to come back and take his place in the regiment.”
“Ah!” sighed Lady Gowan; and she let her head fall once more upon her son’s shoulder.
Frank started impatiently.
“Oh!” he cried, “and you will go on believing it. There, I can’t be angry with you now, you are so ill; but try and believe the truth, mother. Father is the King’s servant, and he would not—he could not break his oaths. There, you will see the truth when you get better; and you must, you must get better now. It was this news which made you so ill?”
“Yes, my boy, yes,” she said, in a faint whisper; “and I blame myself for not going with him. If I had been by his side, he would not have changed.”
“He has not changed, mother,” said the lad firmly. “But how did you get the news?”
“It came through Andrew Forbes’s father—Mr George Selby, as he calls himself now. He sent it to—to one of the gentlemen in the Palace. I must not mention names.”
“Ha—ha—ha!” laughed Frank scornfully. “I thought it was some miserable, hatched-up lie. Mr George Selby has been playing a contemptible, spy-like part, trying to gain over people in the Palace. He and his party tried to get me to join them.”