"So you are not to have her country place for your honeymoon," said Allingford. "From what I have heard of Melton Court, it would be quite an ideal spot under the circumstances." "No, we are not going there. The fact is, I don't know where we are going," added Scarsdale. "Really!" "Yes. As you were saying just now, your countrywomen are apt to prove exacting, and the future Mrs. Scarsdale has taken it into her head that I am much too prosaic to plan a wedding trip--that I would do the usual round, in fact, and that she would be bored in consequence; so she has taken the arrangements upon herself, and the whole thing is to be a surprise for me. I don't even know the station from which we start." "I'm afraid I can't commiserate you," returned Allingford, laughing, "for I'm guilty of doing the very same thing myself, and my bride elect has no idea of our destination. She spends most of her spare time in trying to guess it." At this moment a card was handed to Allingford, who said: "Why, here is my best man, Jack Carrington. You know him, don't you? I wonder what can have started him on my trail," and he requested the page to show him up. A moment later Carrington entered the room. He was one of the best-dressed, most perfect-mannered young men in London, the friend of every one who knew him, a thoroughly delightful and irresponsible creature. To-day, however, there was a seriousness about his face that proclaimed his mission to be of no very pleasant character. After greeting his friends, he asked for a few words in private with his principal, and as a result of this colloquy Allingford excused himself to Scardsdale, saying that he must return to his lodgings at once, as Carrington had brought him news that his brother Dick had arrived unexpectedly from America, and was awaiting him there. "What a delightful surprise for you!" exclaimed Scarsdale. "Yes, very--of course," returned Allingford drily; and after a mutual interchange of congratulations on the events of the morrow, and regrets that neither could be at the wedding of the other, the Consul and his best man left the club. "He did not seem over-enthusiastic at Carrington's news," mused Scarsdale, and then his mind turned to his own affairs. It was not astonishing that Robert Allingford received the news of his brother's arrival without any show of rejoicing. A family skeleton is never an enjoyable possession, but when it is not even decently interred, but very much alive, and in the shape of a brother who has attained notoriety as a black sheep of an unusually intense dye, it may be looked upon as little less than a curse.