“Frank!” he called.
“Sir!” responded Frank, never turning his face from the window.
“If you are willing to ask your sister’s pardon, come down!”
“O, Frank, Frank, do come,” pleaded Kate in his ear, in the sweetest, tenderest of whispers, but Frank gave no response.
Mr. Hallock entered the room, led Kate away, and locked the door again.
Chapter X.
As the darkness grew into the room where Frank Hallock was prisoned, the boy’s misery grew around his heart. Over and over to himself he said: “I am sorry I struck Kate; but I won’t tell father and mother I’m sorry—not if I have to stay here forever! They are always praising Kate, and they think everything she does is just right, and everything I do is as horrid as horrid can be—and it isn’t fair one bit. Kate has a real good time, and I never can do anything I want to. Father and mother love Kate a great deal more than they do me. Besides, I’m fourteen and over—big enough to take care of myself, without somebody to tell me every single thing I must do or mustn’t do; and I won’t stand it! Lots and lots of boys run away from home in story books, and have capital, good, jolly times. I’ve a great mind to run away myself.”
At the same time in which Frank was thinking these thoughts, he heard distinctly the voice of conscience telling him that his father and mother were right; that the best and only just thing for him to do was the very thing they desired him to do. And far louder and deeper than the wicked suggestion concerning the absence of love, came the ringing assurance, through all the days and nights that he could remember, of unnumbered, untellable acts of love. Poor Frank, the good and the evil were striving for the mastery of him.
Sitting thus, and pondering the possibilities of running away from home—the home that he, for the moment, persuaded himself that he detested—there came to him a few trembling tones of sound from below. He knew that tea was over, and that Kate was at the piano. He could see the evening lamp on the table, and his father and mother sitting in the room. Yes, then it came—the song of thanks and praise for all the blessings of the day.