"Hullo, Frederic, are you asleep yet?" came in Dr. Remington's voice.
"He mustn't see me in this condition," thought the young man, and continued quiet.
There followed another knock and a pause. "Guess he's out for breakfast," muttered the doctor, and stalked away.
"Breakfast," murmured Vernon. "I don't feel as if I could eat a mouthful in a week."
For the thrashing had made him sick all over. It was nearly noon when he did venture out, and then he got his first meal of the day at a restaurant where he was unknown.
He wondered greatly who had informed Richard Anderson of what was going on. Strange to say, he never suspected Mr. Farley.
"It must have been that Robert Frost," he said, at last. "He has read my letter to aunt, and wants to get me into trouble. I wish he was at the bottom of the ocean!"
All day long Vernon brooded over the way he had been treated.
"If this whole affair comes out and aunt hears of it, she will treat me worse than ever," he reasoned. "I wish I could get to her and have a talk." He felt certain that he would be able to persuade Mrs. Vernon into treating him more liberally, not suspecting that she had discovered the plot to send her to an insane asylum.
At last a bold, bad plan entered his head, and he resolved to act upon it the very next morning. He would draw up a check for himself for six hundred dollars, and sign Mrs. Vernon's name to it. He was a clever penman, and felt he could imitate her signature closely. He had frequently received large checks from her, and the forgery would never be suspected at the bank.