, I leave your mother to you as your care."

Frank's hands were cold and his forehead wet as he read these last
words, and the affectionate, loving way in which his father concluded
his letter, the last information being that he was in England, and had
gone north to join friends who would shortly be marching on London.

"Burn this, the last letter I shall be able to leave for you, unless we
triumph. Then we shall meet again."

"`Burn this,'" said Frank, in a strange, husky whisper. "Yes, I meant
to burn this;" and in a curious, unemotional way, looking white and wan
the while, he dropped the letter in the fire, and stood watching it as
it blazed up till the flame drew near the great red wax seal bearing his
father's crest. This melted till the crest was blurred out, the wax ran
and blazed, and in a few moments there was only a black, crumpled patch
of tinder, over and about which a host of tiny sparks seemed to be
chasing each other till all was soft and grey.

"I needn't have burned it," said the boy, in a low, pained voice. "What
does it matter now?"

He stood looking old and strange as he spoke. It did not seem a boy's
face turned to the fire, but that of an effeminate young man in some
great suffering, as he said again, in a voice which startled him and
made him shiver:

"What does it matter now?"

He turned his head and listened then, before stooping to take up the
poker and scatter the grey patch of ashes that still showed letters and
words; for he appeared to have suddenly awakened to the fact that the
thundering of the knocker was still going on and the bell pealing.

"Hah!" he sighed; "I must go back and tell her I was wrong. Poor
mother, what she must feel!"

He moved slowly toward the door of the room, and then encountered the
housekeeper standing at the foot of the stairs.

"Oh, my dear, my dear!" she moaned; "what shall we do? I heard them
send for hammers to break in again."

"They will not, Berry," he said quietly. "I will go up and let them
in."

"Oh, my dear!" cried the woman, forgetting the noise at the front door.
"Don't speak like that. What is the matter? You're white as ashes."

"Matter?" he said, looking at the old woman wistfully. "Matter--ashes--
yes, ashes. I can't tell you, Berry. I'm ill. I feel as if--as if--"

He did not finish the sentence aloud, but to himself, and he said:

"As if my father I loved so were dead." He walked quietly upstairs now
into the ha