aid the boy bluntly. "It will only
agitate you more. Isn't it enough that I helped him to get safe away
without any accident?"

"Yes, yes, you are right," said Lady Gowan. "But how rash, how mad of
him to come! Frank, remember that you must not breathe a word about how
it was that I was able to warn him."

"I see," said Frank; "it would make mischief."

"And this has undone all that I was trying to do. He might have been
forgiven in time; now we shall have to wait perhaps for years."

"Then don't let's wait, mother. He says that we should have to suffer
terribly if we shared his lot with him. But who cares? I shouldn't a
bit, and I'm sure you wouldn't mind."

"I, my boy?" cried Lady Gowan passionately. "I'd gladly lead the
humblest life with him, so that we could be at peace."

"Very well, then; let's go."

Lady Gowan shook her head.

"We must respect your father's wishes, Frank," she said sadly. "No; we
must stay as we are till we are ordered to leave here, or your father
bids us come."

"There," said the boy, "I was right. You must not talk about it any
more; it only makes you cry. Never mind what happened last night. He
has got safely away."

"But if he should venture again, my boy," sobbed Lady Gowan.

"Never mind about _ifs_, mother. Of course he longed to see us, and he
ran the risk, so as to be near. I should have done the same, if I had
been like he is. There, now you lie still and read all day. He won't
run any more risks, so as not to frighten you. I must go now."

Lady Gowan clung to her son for a few minutes, and then he hurried away,
to find Andrew Forbes in the courtyard.

"Ah, I was right!" he said. "I went to your rooms, thinking I should
catch you; but you were up and off. I thought this would be where you
had come. But, I say, I thought we were friends."

"Well, so we are."

"Don't seem like it, for you to go and have a jolly night of adventures
like that, and leave me out in the cold."

"I couldn't help it, Drew," said Frank apologetically.

"Yes, you could. I smell a rat now. I thought you turned very queer
when we were by your house yesterday. Then you saw him at one of the
windows?"

Frank looked at him frowningly, and then nodded his head.

"And never told me! Well, this is being a friend! I would have trusted
you. But, I say, it was grand. I've just seen Captain Murray and the
doctor. They were together in the captain's room. They wouldn't say