noon
`` You understand , '' resumed Mr. Nicholson , speaking precisely , but with ashen lips , `` I do this for my family , not for that unhappy young man . If it should turn out that these suspicions are correct , and he has embezzled large sums , he must lie on his bed as he has made it . '' And then looking up at MacEwen with a nod , and one of his strange smiles : `` Good-bye , '' said he ; and MacEwen , perceiving the case to be too grave for consolation , took himself off , and blessed God on his way home that he was childless . By a little after noon on the eve of Christmas , John had left his portmanteau in the cloak-room , and stepped forth into Princes Street with a wonderful expansion of the soul , such as men enjoy on the completion of long-nourished schemes . He was at home again , incognito and rich ; presently he could enter his father 's house by means of the pass-key , which he had piously preserved through all his wanderings ; he would throw down the borrowed money ; there would be a reconciliation , the details of which he frequently arranged ; and he saw himself , during the next month , made welcome in many stately houses at many frigid dinner-parties , taking his share in the conversation with the freedom of the man and the traveller , and laying down the law upon finance with the authority of the successful investor . But this programme was not to be begun before evening -- not till just before dinner , indeed , at which meal the re-assembled family were to sit roseate , and the best wine , the modern fatted calf , should flow for the prodigal 's return . Meanwhile he walked familiar streets , merry reminiscences crowding round him , sad ones also , both with the same surprising pathos .