Now it seemed that his mission in New York must be completed. Now he could return to college for the final months he was to spend there. He thought of his old home that had been lost to him through the folly of his guardian, Professor Scotch, and he was seized by a desire to revisit it.
“If I had a little more time, I’d do so,” he decided. “But I can’t do it now. I wonder who owns the old place. My money is gone, and I could not buy it back now.”
Merriwell had not yet been able to communicate with his father.
“He could buy back the old place,” thought Merry, “and he would do so if I asked him. It would be a fine home for us, and we both feel the need of a home. I’ll suggest the idea to him.”
These thoughts of home brought strange fancies to him. He remembered that he had once dreamed of sitting at his own fireside, with another who was to be his companion for life. He had looked up from the paper he was reading, and in his vision, his dream, he had gazed at the sweet face of his wife, the face of———— Was it Elsie, or Inza?
But now those dreams were to be his no more! Inza had decided that Merry was not for her, and she had turned to the handsome, fair-haired freshman giant, Dick Starbright. Elsie, fully believing that Frank cared more for Inza than for her, had found in Bart Hodge a passionate admirer. But not even Bart’s words of love had drawn a confession from her lips, and she would only say that she had resolved never to marry.
But Frank remained true to his friendship for these girls. Inza, proud, beautiful, brave, was still very dear to him, and he was ready to do anything in his power for her. Elsie—she still held a corner in his heart, and her blue eyes haunted his dreams.
Elsie was far away in Florida, but Inza, with her father, was now in Brooklyn.
“I must see her once more before I return to college,” decided Merry.
And thus it happened that, late that afternoon, he took a Broadway car, getting off at City Hall Park, and crossed to the entrance to the Bridge.