"A great pity," Colonel Chambers agreed. "A young fellow who will start
in pursuit of a desperate man who is armed with a gun, would be the sort
of fellow to lead a forlorn hope. And what are you going to do, Frank?"

"I am going to try and get a commission, sir, now that Julian is
completely cleared. I shall set about it at once. I am sixteen now.
Colonel Wilson, with whom my father served in Spain, wrote at his death,
and said that if either of us wished for a commission, he would, when
the time came, use his influence to get him one, and that after father's
services he was sure there would be no difficulty about it."

"None whatever. Colonel Wyatt's sons have almost a right to a
commission. If you will write to Sir Robert Wilson at once, and let me
know when you get his reply, I will write to a friend at the
Horse-guards and get him to back up the request as soon as it is sent
in."

Three weeks later Frank received an official document, informing him
that he had been gazetted to the 15th Light Dragoons, and was to join
the depot of his regiment at Canterbury immediately. Mrs. Troutbeck had
been consulted by Frank before he wrote to Colonel Sir R. Wilson. As it
had, since Julian decided not to enter the army, been a settled thing
that Frank should apply for a commission, she had offered no objection.

"It is only right, my dear," she said, with tears in her eyes and a
little break in her voice, "that one of my dear brother's sons should
follow in his footsteps. I know that he always wished you both to join
the army, and as Julian had no fancy for it, I am glad that you should
go. Of course it will be a trial, a great trial to me; but a young man
must go on his own path, and it would be wrong indeed for an old woman
like me to stand in his way."

"I don't know, Aunt, that it is so. That is my only doubt about applying
for the commission. I can't help thinking that it is my duty to stay
with you until Julian comes back."

"Not at all, Frank. It would make me much more unhappy seeing you
wasting your life here, than in knowing you were following the course
you had marked for yourself. I shall do very well. Mary is a very good
and attentive girl, and I shall get another in to do most of her work,
so that she can sit with me and be a sort of companion. Then, you know,
there are very few afternoons that one or other of my friends do not
come in for an hour for a gossip or I go in to them. I take a good deal
of blam