"That I should regard you as a friend? I won't forget it, Mr. Ferret."
One by one the company left the house, and Frank was alone.
Left alone and unsustained by sympathy, he felt more bitterly than before the totally unexpected change in his circumstances.
Up to the last hour he had regarded himself as the heir of the estate. Now he was only a dependent of a man whom he heartily disliked.
Could it be that this misfortune had come to him through the agency of his mother?
"I will not believe it!" he exclaimed, energetically.