had gone, and he called a hansom, paused a moment with his foot on the
step, then finally directed the man to drive to the Fraylings'.

"Swell's bin sold some'ow," commented the porter. "And if I was a swell I
wouldn't take on neither."




CHAPTER XIII.


The Fraylings had decided to postpone all further festivities till the
bride and bridegroom's return, so that the wedding guests had gone, and
the house looked as drearily commonplace as any other in the street when
the hansom pulled up a little short of the door for Major Colquhoun to
alight.

The servant who answered his ring made no pretense of concealing his
astonishment when he saw who it was, but Major Colquhoun's manner
effectually checked any expression of it. He was not the kind of a man
whom a servant would ever have dared to express any sympathy with, however
obviously things might have gone wrong. But there was nothing in Major
Colquhoun's appearance at that moment to show that anything had gone
wrong, except his return when he should have been off on his wedding
journey. There was probably a certain amount of assumption in his apparent
indifference. He had always cultivated an inscrutable bearing, as being
"the thing" in his set, so that it was easy for him now to appear to be
cooler and more collected than he was. His attitude, however, was largely
due to a want of proper healthy feeling, for he was a vice-worn man, with