“Bernard Belmont has followed me, and he will drag me back to the old prison—I know it.”
“He shall not!” exclaimed Frank, with determination.
“The law is with him,” said the boy, weakly. “He has the best of it, for he is my legal guardian.”
“At that he has no right to abuse you, and he can be deprived of guardianship over you. It shall be done.”
But no light of hope illumined the face of the unfortunate boy.
“It will be no use,” George said. “He has starved me and beaten me. He has drenched me with water, and left me where it was icy cold, so that I have been awfully ill. And all the time I had this—this cough.”
Frank leaped to his feet and paced the small room like a caged tiger, his soul wrought to an intense fury at the thought of the treatment the boy had received. He longed for power to punish the monster who had perpetrated such dastardly acts.
“Your sister,” he finally asked—“did this brute treat her thus?”
“Nearly as bad, but she was older and stronger.”
“Tell me, how did your sister get away from him?”