R SIXTEEN.

FRANK HAS A PAINFUL TASK.

For the moment Frank Gowan forgot that it was only half-past five, and
after waiting a reasonable time he rang again.

But all was still in the court, which lay in the shade, while the great
red-brick clock tower was beginning to glow in the sunshine. There were
some pigeons on one of the roofs preening their plumes, and a few
sparrows chirping here and there, while every window visible from where
the boy stood was whitened by the drawn-down blinds.

He rang again and waited, but all was as silent as if the place were
uninhabited, and the whistling of wings as half a dozen pigeons suddenly
flew down to begin stalking about as if in search of food sounded
startling.

"Too soon," thought Frank; and going a little way along, he seated
himself upon a dumpy stone post, to wait patiently till such time as the
Palace servants were astir.

And there in the silence his thoughts went back to his adventures that
morning, and the scene, which seemed to have been enacted days and days
ago, came vividly before his eyes, while he thrilled once more with the
feeling of mingled horror and excitement, as he seemed to stand again
close behind Captain Murray, expecting moment by moment to see his
father succumb to the German's savage attack.

There it all was, as clear as if it were still going on, right to the
moment when the baron missed his desperate thrust and literally fell
upon his adversary's point.

"It was horrid, horrid, horrid," muttered the lad with a shiver; and he
tried to divert his mind by thinking of how he should relate just a
sufficiency of the encounter to his mother, and no more.

"Yes," he said to himself. "I'll just tell her that they fought, that
father was scratched by the baron's sword, and then the baron was badly
wounded in return.

"That will do," he said, feeling perfectly satisfied; "I'll tell her
just in this way."

But as he came to this determination, doubt began to creep in and ask
him whether he could relate the trouble so coolly and easily when his
mother's clear eyes were watching him closely and searching for every
scrap of truth; and then he began to think it possible that he might
fail, and stand before her feeling guilty of keeping a great deal back.

"I know I shall grow confused, and that she will not believe that poor
father's arm was only scratched, and she'll think at once that it is a
serious wound, and that the baron is dead."

He tur