“My poor lad!” he groaned. “Poor Rob—poor Lady Gowan! Then it is all a miserable concoction, Frank. He has not escaped.”
“Yes, yes,” cried the lad wildly. “You don’t understand. It was Drew Forbes who went—my mother’s cloak and veil.”
“What! And your mother is safe at home?”
“Yes, yes,” cried Frank. “Don’t you see?”
The captain burst into a wild, strange laugh, and stood with his face white from agony and his hand pressed upon his side.
“Run,” he whispered; “I am crippled. I can go no farther. Tell her at once. They will get him out of the country safely now. Oh, Frank boy, what glorious news!”
Frank hardly heard the last words, but dashed off to where he found his mother kneeling by the couch in the darkened room, her face buried in her hands.
But she heard his step, and sprang up, her face so ghastly that it frightened him as he shouted aloud:
“Safe, mother!—escaped!”
“Ah!” she cried, in a low, deep sigh full of thankfulness; and she fell upon her knees with her hands clasped together and her head bent low upon her breast, just as the clouds that had been hanging heavily all the day opened out; and where the shutters were partly thrown back a broad band of golden light shot into the room and bathed the kneeling figure offering up her prayer of thankfulness for her husband’s life, while Frank knelt there by her side.