othing
should be hid. If the matter is one for which you feel shame, if it is
some wrong-doing, the more reason that you should come to me, my boy,
and confide in me, that I may take you once again to my heart, and kneel
with you, that we may together pray for forgiveness and the strength to
be given to save you from such another sin."

"Mother," cried the boy passionately, "I have not sinned in this!"

"Ah!--Then what is it?"

"I cannot tell you."

"Frank, if ever there was a time when mother and son should be firmly
tied in mutual confidence, it is now. I have no one to cling to but
you, and you hold me at a distance like this."

"Yes, yes; but I cannot tell you."

"You think so, my boy; but don't keep it from me."

"Mother," cried Frank wildly, "I must!"

"You shall not, my boy. I will know."

"I cannot tell you."

He held out his hands to her imploringly, but she drew back from him,
and her eyes seemed to draw the truth he strove so hard to keep hidden
from his unwilling lips.

"There, then!" he cried passionately; "I bore it as long as I could:
because he insulted my father--it was to defend his honour that I struck
him, and we fought."

"You drew to defend your father's honour," said Lady Gowan hoarsely; and
her face looked drawn and her lips white.

"Yes, that was it. Is it so childish of me to say that I could not help
that?"

"No," said Lady Gowan, in a painful whisper. "How did he insult your
father? What did he say?"

"Must I tell you?"

"Yes."

Frank drew a long, deep, sobbing breath, and his voice sounded broken
and strange, as he said in a low, passionate voice:

"He dared to insult my father--he said he was false to the King--that he
had broken his oath as a soldier--that he was a miserable rebel and
Jacobite, and had gone over to the Pretender's side."

"Oh!" ejaculated Lady Gowan, shrinking back into the corner of the
couch, and covering her face with her hands.

"Mother, forgive me!" cried the lad, throwing himself upon his knees,
and trying to draw her hands from her face. "I could not speak. It
seemed so horrible to have to tell you such a cruel slander as that. I
could not help it. I should have struck at anybody who said it, even if
it had been the Prince himself."

Lady Gowan let her son draw her hands from her white, drawn face, and
sat back gazing wildly in his eyes.

"Oh, mother!" he cried piteously, "can you think this a sin? Don't look
at me like that