Leaving the old lady at the door of her lodgings, Frank strode on at a rapid pace, neither looking to the right nor to the left, seeing none of the people by whom he passed, thinking of nothing but his lost love. At length the long fasting he had undergone began to tell upon him, he felt sick and faint, and determined to go to his Club to get some refreshment,--not to the Flybynights; he could not have borne the noisy racket, the bewildering chaff, of that circle of free-lances; so he strode steadily down to Pall Mall, and turned into the Retrenchment. Even that solemn temple of gastronomy and politics was far too lively for him in his then mood. The coffee-room was filled with a number of men who had dined late, many of whom, just returned from their autumnal expeditions, and not having met for a couple of months, had "joined tables," and were loudly talking over their holiday experiences. All was light and lively and jolly; and Frank felt, as he sat in the midst of them, like the death's-head at the banquet. At one table close by his four men were sitting over their wine, one of the number being rallied by the rest about his approaching marriage. "You're a lucky fellow, by Jove, Hope!" Frank heard one of them say; "I always said Miss Chudleigh was the prettiest girl out since the Lexden's year." "What's become of the Lexden--didn't she get married or something?" asked another. "Oh, yes!" answered the first--"married a man who's a member here. I don't know him; but a cleverish fellow, I believe. No tin--regular case of spoons, they said it was." "Mistake that!" said the _fiancé_, whose future father-in-law was a wealthy brewer; "spoons is all very well, but it wants something to back it." "Ah, but it's not every one that has your luck," said old Tommy Orme, who just then joined the party--"nor, I will say, Hope it isn't every one that deserves it, by Jove!" and on the Hope of that speech, old Tommy determined to borrow a ten-pound note from his friend on the first opportunity. Frank shuddered as he listened, and bent his head over his cutlet. "Was there any thing in what those men had said?" he asked himself, as he walked home. Could it have been that the state of comparative poverty into which he had brought his wife had soured her temper, rendered her jealous and querulous, and so disgusted her as to cause her to avail herself of the first excuse which presented itself for returning to her former life? It might be so, indeed. If a were, Frank was not disposed to think of her very uncharitably: he knew the whole wealth of love which he had bestowed upon her; but he thought that her bringing-up might perhaps have rendered her incapable of appreciating it; and he went to his solitary bed with a feeling of something more than pity for his absent wife, after imploring peace to and pardon for them both in his prayers.