He resolved to work with his brains as well as with his hands. "I have some education," he thought, "and I will seize the opportunities as they present themselves. I do not care for riches now. If only I could succeed in securing enough money to put me out of the danger of want, I should be satisfied."
Since his adventure in the garden, he had not dared to go again near "Les Marches."
He thought that Mr. Rougeant had perhaps recognised him, but, fortunately for him, Adèle's father had failed to discern his crouching figure.
Three months afterwards, Frank was planting his tomatoes in his greenhouses. He had two span-roofs, each one hundred and forty feet long by forty feet wide.
He had sold the workshop which was situated a few yards to the north of the house, and had thus been enabled to build larger houses than he at first intended.
He heard vague rumours about his step-mother going to marry again. If the truth must be said, Frank felt delighted at the prospect of getting rid of her. He had never cared for her much, and, recently, the gap that had always existed between them had been considerably enlarged.
He had been out on business and had arrived rather late in the evening, at which Mrs. Mathers was terribly displeased. "I am not going to sit up all night waiting for you," she said, and then she added in a most sarcastic tone of voice: "Perhaps you have been at the cemetery."
Frank was moved to the quick. He was of a rather passionate temper and he felt nothing but contempt for the person who had made this remark. "I have not been," he said hotly, "I have been about my business."
"I thought that perhaps you had been crying there," she continued with the same irritating smile on her features.
Frank answered: "I might have done worse."
"Who would think that of a man of twenty-one," she said. "Of course, you do not care for your poor father; your mother gets all the tears."
Frank quite forgot himself. He looked at her defiantly and said in a low tone half fearing and yet wishing to be heard: "You are a Jezabel," then turned round and left the room.
When he came to think over the last words which he had used towards his step-mother, he felt ashamed of himself. He felt he had not behaved as a man, much less as a Christian. He had gone much too far; he owed her respect.