"I am angry, and cruelly disappointed in you, Frank," she said sternly.
"But your repentance has been quick, and you have done what is right.
There, I will forgive you, on your solemn promise that you will not
again sin like this. I will give you the money to pay the miserable
debt, and if I have not enough I will get it, even if I have to sell my
diamonds."

She looked at him as it expecting now a burst of repentant thanks; but
he remained speechless, and a feeling of resentment against him rose in
Lady Gowan's breast, as she felt that this was not the return the boy
should have made to her gentle reproof, her offer to free him from his
difficulty, and her eyes flashed upon him angrily.

"Oh, mother!" he cried, "don't look at me like that."

"I must, Frank," she said, loosing his hand, "you are not meeting me in
this matter as you should."

"No, no," he cried, finding his tongue now, and catching her hands in
his, as he sank on his knees before her. "Don't shrink from me, though
it does seem so cruel of me."

"More cruel, my boy, than you think," she said, as she resigned her
hands to him lovingly once more. "Speak out to me, then. It is what I
fear?"

"Oh no, no, mother darling," he groaned. "I must speak now. It is far
worse than that."

"Worse!" she cried, with a startled look in her eyes. "Some quarrel?"

He bowed his head, partly in assent, partly to escape her piercing look.

"And you are no longer a schoolboy--you wear a sword. Oh, Frank, Frank!
you--Andrew Forbes."

He shook his head and bowed it down. Then he raised it firmly and
proudly, and met his mother's eyes gazing wildly at him now, as she
tried to release her hands, but as he held them tightly, pressed them
with her own against her throbbing breast.

"He told me to come to you as a man and break the news."

"He--your father--told you--to break the news. Ah, I see it all. A
quarrel--and they have fought--but he bade you come. Then he lives!"

"Yes, yes, mother dear. He is wounded, but very slightly in the arm."

Lady Gowan uttered a low, piteous cry, and sank upon her knees beside
her son, with her lips moving quickly for some moments, as he supported
her where they knelt together.

"Wounded--dangerously?" she moaned.

"No, no; believe me, mother, slightly in his sword arm. He walked back
with me."

"To his quarters?"

"No. He was arrested."

"Ah!" ejaculated Lady Gowan. "Arrested--why?"

Frank hastily explained