But by this time the "Bons Frères" Club had acquired for itself a very unenviable reputation among the more staid circles of Dulminster society. More than one promising young man had ruined himself, or had been ruined by others--it came to the same thing in the end--in that cosy octagon room built out at the back of the Club, where so many pleasant fellows forgathered night after night. By-and-bye it began to be whispered about that the place was little better than a den of thieves. Thus it came to pass that one day an information was sworn against the Club by the father of a youngster who had come to grief within its walls, the consequence of which was that the same night the police made a raid on the premises, and not content with seizing the whole of the gambling plant, they marched everyone they found there to the police-station, where names and addresses were taken down, and a summons handed to each delinquent to appear next morning before the magistrates. Among those thus taken red-handed was Frank Derison. From that moment, as he knew full well, his career at the Bank was at an end. Such an escapade was one of those things which Mr. Avison was the last man in he world to overlook; indeed, Frank never went near him afterwards. Two days later, without saying a word to anyone, he took the train for London and enlisted. This little affair of Frank's happened about a fortnight before Richard Varrel's confession was made public. When Mr. Avison read the confession in his morning paper, he saw the way open to him for an act of reparation, which he had been longing for some time to carry into effect, but which his pride--in this instance, surely, a very foolish sort of pride--had hitherto kept him from doing. Now, however, he wrote a very gracious note to John Brancker, in which the latter was asked to call upon the Banker without delay. It will be sufficient to record the result of the meeting, which was that John was asked to accept the position of junior partner in the firm. But little more remains to be told. It was a great mortification to poor Mrs. Hazeldine, and one which it took her some time to recover from, to find that both Lady Glendoyle and the Hon. Mrs. Gore-Bandon, after calling twice upon her--their carriages and liveried servants waiting for them at the door meanwhile--dropped her as easily and quietly as they had taken her up. Whether their calls in the first instance had originated in a feeling of sympathy for her in her great affliction, not unmixed, it may be, with a hardly acknowledged wish to ascertain the particulars of the late tragedy at the fountain-head, or whether they discovered certain qualities in Mrs. Hazeldine which seemed to render it desirable that they should not cultivate her further, were points best known to themselves, and as to which they took nobody into their confidence. In any case, the fact remained the same--the widow saw them no more.