shoulder heavily grasped by the Prince.

"Good lad!" he said. "Go to your duties. I see I shall have in you a
servant I can trust."

Frank did not know how he got out of the room, for his head was in a
whirl, and he did not thoroughly come to himself till he had been seated
for some time by his mother's couch and had told her all that had
passed.

But somehow Lady Gowan did not look happy, and when she parted from her
son there was a wistful look in her eyes which told of a greater trouble
than that of which the boy was aware.

"Of course," said Andrew Forbes, when he had drawn the full account of
the boy's experiences from him; "but you need not be so precious
enthusiastic over it. You had done nothing, though plenty of people get
hung nowadays for that."

"But he was very kind and nice to me."

"Kind and nice!" said Andrew, with a sneer. "That was his artfulness.
He wants to make all the friends he can against a rainy day--his rainy
day. He's thinking of being king; but he won't be. I do know that."

Frank gave him an angry look, and turned away; but his companion caught
his arm.

"Don't go, Frank; that was only one of my snarls. I'm not so generous
and ready to believe in people as you are."

Frank remembered his companion's position and his confidence about his
father, and turned back.

"I can't bear to hear you talk like that."

"Slipped out," said Andrew hurriedly. "There, then, it's all right
again for you. But there's no mistake about your having a good friend
in the Princess."

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

FRANK BOILS OVER.

There seemed to be a good deal of excitement about the court one day;
people were whispering together, and twice over, as Frank was
approaching, he noted that they either ceased talking or turned their
backs upon him and walked away. But he took no further notice of it
then, for his mind was very full of his father, of whom he had not heard
for some time.

His mother had seemed terribly troubled and anxious when he had met her,
but he shrank from asking her the cause, feeling that his father's long
silence was telling upon her; and in the hope of getting news he went
again and again to the house in Queen Anne Street, ascended to the
drawing-room, and opened the picture-panelled closet door.

But it was for nothing. The housekeeper had told him that Sir Robert
had not been; but thinking that his father could have let himself in
unknown to the old servant, Frank