"A disowned son!" repeated Marion. "I did not know that people out of novels—and even in novels it has gone out of fashion—ever disowned their sons now."
"As I have heard the story," said Rathborne, "it is more a case of the son disowning the father. He refused to comply with his father's wishes in any respect, and finally broke away and left home, going off to South America, I believe. He has not been heard of for a considerable number of years, and Tom Singleton says there is every reason to believe him dead. Of course the wish is father to the thought with him, but others have told me the same thing."
"Perhaps his father drove him away by harshness, and remorse is what is the matter with him," said Netta Morley, solemnly.
Rathborne laughed. "From my knowledge of old Mr. Singleton," he replied, "I should not judge that remorse preyed upon him to any great extent. The son, I have been told, was a wild, rebellious youth, whom it was impossible to control—one of those unfortunate human beings who seem born to go wrong, and whom no influence can restrain."
"Where was the poor boy's mother?" asked Mrs. Dalton.
"She died when he was very young. But, with all due deference to the popular idea of a mother's influence, I think we see many cases in which it fails altogether."
"Yes," said Mrs. Dalton. "But even if her influence fails, her patience is more long-suffering than that of any one else, and her love is more enduring. Perhaps this boy might not have been lost if his mother had lived."
"If we begin with 'perhaps' we may imagine anything we please," remarked Rathborne, in atone which Marion had learned to understand as expressing contempt for the opinion advanced.
"Without indulging in any imagination at all, so much as is known of the Singletons is very interesting indeed," she said, in her clear, fluent voice. "If I see any of them, I shall look at them with much more attention from having heard this romantic story of a lost son and a great fortune."
"I think you are very likely to see Mrs. Singleton," observed Netta. "She spoke as if she desired to make your acquaintance."