"Aren't you that Mulvy boy?" she asked.
"Yes, Mrs. Joyce," he replied.
"I thought so," she continued. "Well, you've been found out at last."
That was all. It was a terrible lot for Frank's sensitive soul, but he said in his heart, "For Thee, Jesus," and went bravely on. At home, a new trial was awaiting him. His mother had been stopped on the street several times this morning, and had received very pointed inquiries about her boy. The last woman who addressed her had virtually insulted her.
"Well, Mrs. Mulvy, it's too bad. Who would have thought that your boy, Frank, would turn out so bad!"
Mrs. Mulvy had to make an effort to smile and not reply. But when she got home, she found that she had bit her lips even to blood.
When Frank came in, doubly dear to her now, she almost lost control of herself. She sank with a groan into the large arm chair. Frank was at her side in a second, smothering her with kisses, and breathing out terms of endearment to her. In a moment, she was herself again.
"Excuse me, Frank," she said, "I was all undone. But tell mother, dear, what in the world have you done?"
Frank was brave for himself. But where his mother was concerned, it was different. He knew now that what he had promised at the altar was going to cost him much dearer even than he had calculated. He was strongly tempted to make an exception in his mother's case, and to tell her all. But he remembered his promise at the altar and how Bill himself had said, "There's no going back on a promise to Him."
"A soldier does not quit when he gets a blow, neither will I," he reflected. "This blow is worse because it strikes me through my mother, but I will trust God, and do what I have promised Him. Moreover, if mother could not trust me now, when I tell her I am blameless, would it do any good to tell her the dime-novel truth of the matter?"