Frank Merriwell's Son; Or, A Chip Off the Old Block

by Burt L. Standish

"For Heaven's sake, stop!" commanded Carson. "Don't seek to degrade yourself in my eyes! Don't try to turn me against you in this manner!"

"I'm simply telling you the truth, Berlin Carson. Do you wonder why I vanished after my father's death? Do you wonder why I never faced you again? You knew a part of the miserable truth. Had I been compelled to see you again, I knew I would tell you all, and I likewise knew what that meant."

"What it meant?"

"Yes."

"You thought——"

"I knew it would shock you beyond words. I knew the effect it must have upon you. I could not bring myself to meet you, well knowing that you would shudder and shrink from me."

He lifted his hand.

"No, no, never!" he declared. "You were wrong, Bessie. You were frightfully mistaken. The trouble was that you did not understand me—you did not know me."

"It cannot be that you——"

"I should have pitied you, and I should have loved you all the more, even as I do now," he asserted. "Why not? It was not your fault that your father was a criminal. Of course you had to keep his secret. It was a cruel fate that placed you in such a position."