"And yet it's all for her own good," he told himself, "quite as much as for mine. Better to marry a rich man than a pauper any day; and to take a dislike to a man's age or a man's looks is nothing but a girl's nonsense. The best husband is the one that can keep his wife best; and if I hadn't forced on this business, she'd have taken up with lawyer Randall's son, who's no better than a beggar, and a pretty life she'd have had of it with him."

By such reasoning as this William Carley contrived to set his conscience at rest during that silent walk along the rustic lane between the Grange and Crosber church. It was not a conscience very difficult to appease. And as for his daughter's pallid looks, those of course were only natural to the occasion.

Mr. Whitelaw and Mrs. Tadman were at the church when the bailiff and his daughter arrived. The farmer had made a scarecrow of himself in a new suit of clothes, which he had ordered in honour of this important event, after a great deal of vacillation, and more than one countermand to the Malsham tailor who made the garments. At the last he was not quite clear in his mind as to whether he wanted the clothes, and the outlay was a serious one. Mrs. Tadman had need to hold his every-day coat up to the light to convince him that the collar was threadbare, and that the sleeves shone as if purposely polished by some ingenious process.

"Marriage is an expensive thing," she told him again, with a sigh; "and young girls expect to see a man dressed ever so smart on his wedding-day."

"I don't care for her expectations," Mr. Whitelaw muttered, in reply to this remark; "and if I don't want the clothes, I won't have 'em. Do you think I could get over next Christmas with them as I've got?"

Mrs. Tadman said "No" in a most decisive manner. Perhaps she derived a malicious pleasure from the infliction of that tailor's bill upon her cousin Whitelaw. So the new suit had been finally ordered; and Stephen stood arrayed therein before the altar-rails in the gray old church at Crosber, a far more grotesque and outrageous figure to contemplate than any knight templar, or bearded cavalier of the days of the first English James, whose effigies were to be seen in the chancel. Mrs. Tadman stood a little way behind him, in a merino gown, and a new bonnet, extorted somehow from the reluctant Stephen. She was full of smiles and cordial greetings for the bride, who did not even see her. Neither did Ellen Carley see the awkward figure of her bridegroom. A mist was before her eyes, as if there had been an atmosphere of summer blight or fog in the village church. She knelt, or rose, as her prayer-book taught her, and went through the solemn service as placidly as if she had been a wondrous piece of mechanism constructed to perform such movements; and then, like a creature in a dream, she found herself walking out of the church presently, with her hand on Stephen Whitelaw's arm. She had a faint consciousness of some ceremony in the vestry, where it had taken Stephen a long time to sign his name in the register, and where the clergyman had congratulated him upon his good fortune in having won for himself such a pretty young wife; but it was all more or less like a dreadful oppressive dream. Mr. Whitelaw's chaise-cart was waiting for them; and they all four got in, and drove at once to Wyncomb; where there was another ponderous dinner, very much like the banquet of new-year's-day, and where the bailiff drank freely, after his wont, and grew somewhat uproarious towards tea-time, though Mr. Whitelaw's selections of port and sherry were not of a kind to tempt a connoisseur.

There was to be no honeymoon trip. Stephen Whitelaw did not understand the philosophy of running away from a comfortable home to spend money in furnished lodgings; and he had said as much, when the officious Tadman suggested a run to Weymouth, or Bournemouth, or a fortnight in the Isle of Wight. To Ellen it was all the same where the rest of her life should be spent. It could not be otherwise than wretched henceforward, and the scene of her misery mattered nothing. So she uttered no complaint because her husband brought her straight home to Wyncomb Farmhouse, and her wedded life began in that dreary dwelling-place.



CHAPTER XXXIX.

A DOMESTIC MYSTERY.

It was near the end of March, but still bleak cold weather. Ellen Carley had been married something less than a fortnight, and had come to look upon the dismal old farm-house by the river with a more accustomed eye than when Mrs. Tadman had taken her from room to room on a journey of inspection. Not that the place seemed any less dreary and ugly to her to-day than it had seemed at the very first. Familiarity could not make it pleasant. She hated the house and everything about and around it, as she hated her husband, with a rooted aversion, not to be subdued by any endeavour which she might make now and then—and she did honestly make such endeavour—to arrive at a more Christian-like frame of mind.

Notwithstanding this deeply-seated instinctive dislike to all her surroundings, she endured her fate quietly, and did her duty with a patient spirit which might fairly be accepted as an atonement for those inward rebellious feelings which she could not conquer. Having submitted to be the scapegoat of her father's sin, she bore her burden very calmly, and fulfilled the sacrifice without any outward mark of martyrdom.

She went about the work of the farm-house with a resolute active air that puzzled Mrs. Tadman, who had fully expected the young wife would play the fine lady, and leave all the drudgery of the household to her. But it really seemed as if Ellen liked hard work. She went from one task to another with an indefatigable industry, an energy that never gave way. Only when the day's work in house and dairy was done did her depression of spirits become visible. Then, indeed, when all was finished, and she sat down, neatly dressed for the afternoon, in the parlour with Mrs. Tadman, it was easy to see how utterly hopeless and miserable this young wife was. The pale fixed face, the listless hands clasped loosely in her lap, every attitude of the drooping figure, betrayed the joyless spirit, the broken heart. At these times, when they were alone together, waiting Stephen Whitelaw's coming home to tea, Mrs. Tadman's heart, not entirely hardened by long years of self-seeking, yearned towards her kinsman's wife; and the secret animosity with which she had at first regarded her changed to a silent pity, a compassion she would fain have expressed in some form or other, had she dared.

But she could not venture to do this. There was something in the girl, a quiet air of pride and self-reliance, in spite of her too evident sadness, which forbade any overt expression of sympathy; so Mrs. Tadman could only show her friendly feelings in a very small way, by being especially active and brisk in assisting all the household labours of the new mistress of Wyncomb, and by endeavouring to cheer her with such petty gossip as she was able to pick up. Ellen felt that the woman was kindly disposed towards her, and she was not ungrateful; but her heart was quite shut against sympathy, her sorrow was too profound to be lightened ever so little by human friendship. It was a dull despair, a settled conviction that for her life could never have again a single charm, that her days must go on in their slow progress to the grave unlightened by one ray of sunshine, her burden carried to the end of the dreary journey unrelieved by one hour of respite. It seemed very hard for one so young, not quite three-and-twenty yet, to turn her back upon every hope of happiness, to be obliged to say to herself, "For me the sun can never shine again, the world I live in can never more seem beautiful, or beautiful only in bitter contrast to my broken heart." But Ellen told herself that this fate was hers, and that she must needs face it with a resolute spirit.

The household work employed her mind in some measure, and kept her, more or less, from thinking; and it was for this reason she worked with such unflinching industry, just as she had worked in the last month or two at the Grange, trying to shut her eyes to that hateful future which lay so close before her. Mr. Whitelaw had no reason to retract what he had said in his pride of heart about Ellen Carley's proficiency in the dairy. She proved herself all that he had boasted, and the dairy flourished under the new management. There was more butter, and butter of a superior quality, sent to market than under the reign of Mrs. Tadman; and the master of Wyncomb made haste to increase his stock of milch cows, in order to make more money by this branch of his business. To have won for himself a pretty young wife, who, instead of squandering his substance, would help him to grow richer, was indeed a triumph, upon which Mr. Whitelaw congratulated himself with many a suppressed chuckle as he went about his daily labours, or jogged slowly home from market in his chaise-cart.

As to his wife's feelings towards himself, whether those were cold indifference or hidden dislike, that was an abstruse and remote question which Mr. Whitelaw never took the trouble to ask himself. She was his wife. He had won her, that was the grand point; whatever disinclination she might have felt for the alliance, whatever love she might have cherished for another, had been trampled down and subjugated, and he, Stephen Whitelaw, had obtained the desire of his heart. He had won her, against that penniless young jackanapes, lawyer Randall's son, who had treated him with marked contempt on more than one occasion when they happened to come across each other in Malsham Corn-exchange, which was held in the great covered quadrangular courtyard of the chief inn at Malsham, and was a popular lounge for the inhabitants of that town. He had won her; her own sentiments upon the subject of this marriage were of very little consequence. He had never expected to be loved by his wife, his own ideas of that passion called love being of the vaguest; but he meant to be obeyed by her. She had begun well, had taken her new duties upon herself in a manner that gladdened his sordid soul; and although they had been married nearly a fortnight, she had given no hint of a desire to know the extent of his wealth, or where he kept any little hoard of ready money that he might have by him in the house. Nor on market-day had she expressed any wish to go with him to Malsham to spend money on drapery; and he had an idea, sedulously cultivated by Mrs. Tadman, that young women were perpetually wanting to spend money at drapers' shops. Altogether, that first fortnight of his married life had been most satisfactory, and Mr. Whitelaw was inclined to regard matrimony as a wise and profitable institution.

The day's work was done, and Ellen was sitting with Mrs. Tadman in the every-day parlour, waiting for the return of her lord and master from Malsham. It was not a market-day, but Stephen Whitelaw had announced at dinner-time that he had an appointment at Malsham, and had set out immediately after dinner in the chaise-cart, much to the wonderment of Mrs. Tadman, who was an inveterate gossip, and never easy until she arrived at the bottom of any small household mystery. She wondered not a little also at Ellen's supreme indifference to her husband's proceedings.

"I can't for the life of me think what's taken him to Malsham to-day," she said, as she plied her rapid knitting-needles in the manufacture of a gray-worsted stocking. "I haven't known him go to Malsham, except of a market-day, not once in a twelvemonth. It must be a rare business to take him there in the middle of the week; for he can't abide to leave the farm in working-hours, except when he's right down obliged to it. Nothing goes on the same when his back's turned, he says; there's always something wrong. And if it was an appointment with any one belonging to Malsham, why couldn't it have stood over till Saturday? It must be something out of the common that won't keep a couple of days."

Mrs. Tadman went on with her knitting, gazing at Ellen with an expectant countenance, waiting for her to make some suggestion. But the girl was quite silent, and there was a blank expression in her eyes, which looked out across the level stretch of grass between the house and the river, a look that told Mrs. Tadman very few of her words had been heard by her companion. It was quite disheartening to talk to such a person; but the widow went on nevertheless, being so full of her subject that she must needs talk to some one, even if that some one were little better than a stock or a stone.

"There was a letter that came for Stephen before dinner to-day; he got it when he came in, but it was lying here for an hour first. Perhaps it was that as took him to Malsham; and yet that's strange, for it was a London letter—and it don't seem likely as any one could be coming down from London to meet Steph at Malsham. I can't make top nor tail of it."

Mrs. Tadman laid down her knitting, and gave the fire a vigorous stir. She wanted some vent for her vexation; for it was really too provoking to see Ellen Whitelaw sitting staring out of the window like a lifeless statue, and not taking the faintest interest in the mystery of her husband's conduct. She stirred the fire, and then busied herself with the tea-table, giving a touch here and there where no re-arrangement was wanted, for the sake of doing something.

The room looked comfortable enough in the cold light of the spring afternoon. It was the most occupied room in the house, and the least gloomy. The glow of a good fire brightened the scanty shabby furniture a little, and the table, with its white cloth, homely flowered cups and saucers, bright metal teapot, and substantial fare in the way of ham and home-made bread, had a pleasant look enough in the eyes of any one coming in from a journey through the chill March atmosphere. Mr. Whitelaw's notion of tea was a solid meal, which left him independent of the chances of supper, and yet open to do something in that way; in case any light kickshaw, such as liver and bacon, a boiled sheep's head, or a beef-steak pie, should present itself to his notice.

Ellen roused herself from her long reverie at last. There was the sound of wheels upon the cart-track across the wide open field in front of the house.

"Here comes Mr. Whitelaw," she said, looking out into the gathering dusk; "and there's some one with him."

"Some one with him!" cried Mrs. Tadman. "Why, my goodness, who can that be?"

She ran to the window and peered eagerly out. The cart had driven up to the door by this time, and Mr. Whitelaw and his companion were alighting. The stranger was rather a handsome man, Mrs. Tadman saw at the first glance, tall and broad-shouldered, clad in dark-gray trousers, a short pilot-coat, and a wide-awake hat; but with a certain style even in this rough apparel which was not the style of agricultural Malsham, an unmistakable air that belongs to a dweller in great cities.

"I never set eyes upon him before," exclaimed Mrs. Tadman, aghast with wonder; for visitors at Wyncomb were of the rarest, and an unknown visitor above all things marvellous.

Mr. Whitelaw opened the house-door, which opened straight into a little lobby between the two parlours. There was a larger door and a spacious stone entrance-hall at one end of the house; but that door had not been opened within the memory of man, and the hall was only used as a storehouse now-a-days. There was some little mumbling talk in the lobby before the two men came in, and then Mrs. Tadman's curiosity was relieved by a closer view of the stranger.

Yes, he was certainly handsome, remarkably handsome even, for a man whose youth was past; but there was something in his face, a something sinister and secret, as it were, which did not strike Mrs. Tadman favourably. She could not by any means have explained the nature of her sensations on looking at him, but, as she said afterwards, she felt all in a moment that he was there for no good. And yet he was very civil-spoken too, and addressed both the ladies in a most conciliating tone, and with a kind of florid politeness.

Ellen looked at him, interested for the moment in spite of her apathetic indifference to all things. The advent of a stranger was something so rare as to awaken a faint interest in the mind most dead to impressions. She did not like his manner; there was something false and hollow in his extreme politeness. And his face—what was it in his face that startled her with such a sudden sense of strangeness and yet of familiarity?

Had she ever seen him before? Yes; surely that was the impression which sent such a sudden shook through her nerves, which startled her from her indifference into eager wonder and perplexity. Where had she seen him before? Where and when? Long ago, or only very lately? She could not tell. Yet it seemed to her that she had looked at eyes like those, not once, but many times in her life. And yet the man was utterly strange to her. That she could have seen him before appeared impossible. It must have been some one like him she had seen, then. Yes, that was it. It was the shadow of another face in his that had startled her with so strange a feeling, almost as if she had been looking upon some ghostly thing. Another face, like and yet unlike.

But what face? whose face?

She could not answer that question, and her inability to solve the enigma tormented her all tea-time, as the stranger sat opposite to her, making a pretence of eating heartily, in accordance with Mr. Whitelaw's hospitable invitation, while that gentleman himself ploughed away with a steady persistence that made awful havoc with the ham, and reduced the loaf in a manner suggestive of Jack the Giant-killer.

The visitor presently ventured to remark that tea-drinking was not much in his way, and that, if it were all the same to Mr. Whitelaw, he should prefer a glass of brandy-and-water; whereupon the brandy-bottle was produced from a cupboard by the fire-place, of which Stephen himself kept the key, judiciously on his guard against a possible taste for ardent spirits developing itself in Mrs. Tadman.

After this the stranger sat for some time, drinking cold brandy-and-water, and staring moodily at the fire, without making the faintest attempt at conversation, while Mr. Whitelaw finished his tea, and the table was cleared; and even after this, when the farmer had taken his place upon the opposite side of the hearth, and seemed to be waiting for his guest to begin business.

He was not a lively stranger; he seemed, indeed, to have something on his mind, to be brooding upon some trouble or difficulty, as Mrs. Tadman remarked to her kinsman's wife afterwards. Both the women watched him; Ellen always perplexed by that unknown likeness, which seemed sometimes to grow stronger, sometimes to fade away altogether, as she looked at him; Mrs. Tadman in a rabid state of curiosity, so profound was the mystery of his silent presence.

What was he there for? What could Stephen want with him? He was not one of Stephen's sort, by any means; had no appearance of association with agricultural interests. And yet there he was, a silent inexplicable presence, a mysterious figure with a moody brow, which seemed to grow darker as Mrs. Tadman watched him.

At last, about an hour after the tea-table had been cleared, he rose suddenly, with an abrupt gesture, and said,

"Come, Whitelaw, if you mean to show me this house of yours, you may as well show it to me at once."

His voice had a harsh unpleasant sound as he said this. He stood with his back to the women, staring at the fire, while Stephen Whitelaw lighted a candle in his slow dawdling way.

"Be quick, man alive," the stranger cried impatiently, turning sharply round upon the farmer, who was trimming an incorrigible wick with a pair of blunted snuffers. "Remember, I've got to go back to Malsham; I haven't all the night to waste."

"I don't want to set my house afire," Mr. Whitelaw answered sullenly; "though, perhaps, you might like that. It might suit your book, you see."

The stranger gave a sudden shudder, and told the farmer with an angry oath to "drop that sort of insolence."

"And now show the way, and look sharp about it," he said in an authoritative tone.

They went out of the room in the next moment. Mrs. Tadman gazed after them, or rather at the door which had closed upon them, with a solemn awe-stricken stare.

"I don't like the look of it, Ellen," she said; "I don't at all like the look of it."

"What do you mean?" the girl asked indifferently.

"I don't like the hold that man has got over Stephen, nor the way he speaks to him—almost as if Steph was a dog. Did you hear him just now? And what does he want to see the house for, I should like to know? What can this house matter to him, unless he was going to buy it? That's it, perhaps, Ellen. Stephen has been speculating, and has gone and ruined himself, and that strange man is going to buy Wyncomb. He gave me a kind of turn the minute I looked at him. And, depend upon it, he's come to turn us all out of house and home."

Ellen gave a faint shudder. What if her father's wicked scheming were to come to such an end as this! what if she had been sold into bondage, and the master to whom she had been given had not even the wealth which had been held before her as a bait in her misery! For herself she cared little whether she were rich or poor. It could make but a difference of detail in the fact of her unhappiness, whether she were mistress of Wyncomb or a homeless tramp upon the country roads. The workhouse without Stephen Whitelaw must needs be infinitely preferable to Wyncomb Farm with him. And for her father, it seemed only a natural and justifiable thing that his guilt and his greed should be so punished. He had sold his daughter into life-long slavery for nothing but that one advance of two hundred pounds. He had saved himself from the penalty of his dishonesty, however, by that sacrifice; and would, no doubt, hold his daughter's misery lightly enough, even if poverty were added to the wretchedness of her position.

The two women sat down on opposite sides of the hearth; Mrs. Tadman, too anxious to go on with her accustomed knitting, only able to wring her hands in a feeble way, and groan every now and then, or from time to time burst into some fragmentary speech.

"And Stephen's just the man to have such a thing on his mind and keep it from everybody till the last moment," she cried piteously. "And so many speculations as there are now-a-days to tempt a man to his ruin—railways and mines, and loans to Turks and Red Indians and such-like foreigners; and Steph might so easy be tempted by the hope of larger profits than he can make by farming."

"But it's no use torturing yourself like that with fears that may be quite groundless," Ellen said at last, rousing herself a little in order to put a stop to the wailing and lamentations of her companion. "There's no use in anticipating trouble. There may be nothing in this business after all. Mr. Whitelaw may have a fancy for showing people his house. He wanted me to see it, if you remember, that new-year's afternoon."

"Yes; but that was different. He meant to marry you. Why should he want to show the place to a stranger? I can't believe but what that strange man is here for something, and something bad. I saw it in his face when he first came in."

It was useless arguing the matter; Mrs. Tadman was evidently not to be shaken; so Ellen said no more; and they sat on in silence, each occupied with her own thoughts.

Ellen's were not about Stephen Whitelaw's financial condition, but they were very sad ones. She had received a letter from Frank Randall since her marriage; a most bitter letter, upbraiding her for her falsehood and desertion, and accusing her of being actuated by mercenary motives in her marriage with Stephen Whitelaw.

"How often have I heard you express your detestation of that fellow!" the young man wrote indignantly. "How often have I heard you declare that no earthly persuasion should ever induce you to marry him! And yet before my back has been turned six months, I hear that you are his wife. Without a word of warning, without a line of explanation to soften the blow—if anything could soften it—the news comes to me, from a stranger who knew nothing of my love for you. It is very hard, Ellen; all the harder because I had so fully trusted in your fidelity."

"I will own that the prospect I had to offer you was a poor one; involving long delay before I could give you such a home as I wanted to give you; but O, Nelly, Nelly, I felt so sure that you would be true to me! And if you found yourself in any difficulty, worried beyond your power of resistance by your father—though I did not think you were the kind of girl to yield weakly to persuasion—a line from you would have brought me to your side, ready to defend you from any persecution, and only too proud to claim you for my wife, and carry you away from your father's unkindness."

The letter went on for some time in the same upbraiding strain. Ellen shed many bitter tears over it in the quiet of her own room. It had been delivered to her secretly by her old friend Sarah Peters, the miller's daughter, who had been the confidante of her love affairs; for even in his indignation Mr. Randall had been prudent enough to consider that such a missive, falling perchance into Stephen Whitelaw's hands, might work serious mischief.

Cruel as the letter was, Ellen could not leave it quite unanswered; some word in her own defence she must needs write; but her reply was of the briefest.

"There are some things that can never be explained," she wrote, "and my marriage is one of those. No one could save me from it, you least of all. There was no help for me; and I believe, with all my heart, that, in acting as I did, I only did my duty. I had not the courage to write to you beforehand to tell you what was going to be. I thought it was almost better you should hear it from a stranger. The more hardly you think of me, the easier it will be for you to forget me. There is some comfort in that. I daresay it will be very easy for you to forget. But if, in days to come, when you are happily married to some one else, you can teach yourself to think more kindly of me, and to believe that in what I did I acted for the best, you will be performing an act of charity towards a poor unhappy girl, who has very little left to hope for in this world."

It was a hard thing for Ellen to think that, in the estimation of the man she loved, she must for ever seem the basest and most mercenary of womankind; and yet how poor an excuse could she offer in the vague pleading of her letter! She could not so much as hint at the truth; she could not blacken her father's character. That Frank Randall should despise her, only made her trial a little sharper, her daily burden a little heavier, she told herself.

With her mind full of these thoughts, she had very little sympathy to bestow upon Mrs. Tadman, whose fragmentary lamentations only worried her, like the murmurs of some troublesome not-to-be-pacified child; whereby that doleful person, finding her soul growing heavier and heavier, for lack of counsel or consolation, could at last endure this state of suspense no longer in sheer inactivity, but was fain to bestir herself somehow, if even in the most useless manner. She got up from her seat therefore, went over to the door, and, softly opening it, peered out into the darkness beyond.

There was nothing, no glimmer of Stephen's candle, no sound of men's footsteps or of men's voices; the merest blankness, and no more. The two men had been away from the parlour something more than half an hour by this time.

For about five minutes Mrs. Tadman stood at the open door, peering out and listening, and still without result. Then, with a shrill sudden sound through the long empty passages, there came a shriek, a prolonged piercing cry of terror or of pain, which turned Mrs. Tadman's blood to ice, and brought Ellen to her side, pale and breathless.

"What was that?"

"What was that?"

Both uttered the same question simultaneously, looking at each other aghast, and then both fled in the direction from which that shrill cry had come.

A woman's voice surely; no masculine cry ever sounded with such piercing treble.

They hurried off to discover the meaning of this startling sound, but were neither of them very clear as to whence it had come. From the upper story no doubt, but in that rambling habitation there was so much scope for uncertainty. They ran together, up the staircase most used, to the corridor from which the principal rooms opened. Before they could reach the top of the stairs, they heard a scuffling hurrying sound of heavy footsteps on the floor above them, and on the landing met Mr. Whitelaw and his unknown friend; face to face.

"What's the matter?" asked the farmer sharply, looking angrily at the two scared faces.

"That's just what we want to know," his wife answered. "Who was it that screamed just now? Who's been hurt?"

"My friend stumbled against a step in the passage yonder, and knocked his shin. He cried out a bit louder than he need have done, if that's what you mean, but not loud enough to cause all this fuss. Get downstairs again, you two, and keep quiet. I've no patience with such nonsense; coming flying upstairs as if you'd both gone mad."

"It was not your friend's voice we heard," Ellen answered resolutely; "it was a woman's cry. You must have heard it surely, Stephen Whitelaw."

"I heard nothing but what I tell you," the farmer muttered sulkily. "Get downstairs, can't you?"

"Not till I know what's the matter," his wife said, undismayed by his anger. "Give me your light, and let me go and see."

"You can go where you like, wench, and see what you can; and an uncommon deal wiser you'll be for your trouble."

And yet, although Mr. Whitelaw gave his wife the candlestick with an air of profound indifference, there was an uneasy look in his countenance which she could plainly see, and which perplexed her not a little.

"Come, Mrs. Tadman," she said decisively, "we had better see into this. It was a woman's voice, and must have been one of the girls, I suppose. It may be nothing serious, after all,—these country girls scream out for a very little,—but we'd better get to the bottom of it."

Mr. Whitelaw burst into a laugh—and he was a man whose laughter was as unpleasant as it was rare.

"Ay, my wench, you'd best get to the bottom of it," he said, "since you're so uncommon clever. Me and my friend will go back to the parlour, and take a glass of grog."

The gentleman whom Mr. Whitelaw honoured with his friendship had stood a little way apart all this time, wiping his forehead with a big orange coloured silk handkerchief. That blow upon his shin must have been rather a sharp one, if it had brought that cold sweat out upon his ashen face.

"Yes," he muttered; "come along, can't you? don't stand cawing here all night;" and hurried downstairs before his host.

It had been all the business of a couple of minutes. Ellen Whitelaw and Mrs. Tadman went down to the ground floor by another staircase leading directly to the kitchen. The room looked comfortable enough, and the two servant-girls were sitting at a table near the fire. One was a strapping rosy-cheeked country girl, who did all the household work; the other an overgrown clumsy-looking girl, hired straight from the workhouse by Mr. Whitelaw, from economical motives; a stolid-looking girl, whose intellect was of the lowest order; a mere zoophyte girl, one would say—something between the vegetable and animal creation.

This one, whose name was Sarah Batts, was chiefly employed in the poultry-yard and dairy. She had a broad brawny hand, which was useful for the milking of cows, and showed some kind of intelligence in the management of young chickens and the treatment of refractory hens.

Martha Holden, the house-servant, was busy making herself a cap as her mistress came into the kitchen, droning some Hampshire ballad by way of accompaniment to her work. Sarah Batts was seated in an attitude of luxurious repose, with her arms folded, and her feet on the fender.

"Was it either of you girls that screamed just now?" Ellen asked anxiously.

"Screamed, ma'am! no, indeed," Martha Holden answered, with an air of perfect good faith. "What should we scream for? I've been sitting here at my work for the last hour, as quiet as could be."

"And, Sarah,—was it you, Sarah? For goodness' sake tell the truth."

"Me, mum! lor no, mum. I was up with master showing him and the strange gentleman a light."

"You were upstairs with your master? And did you hear nothing? A piercing shriek that rang through the house;—you must surely have heard it, both of you."

Martha shook her head resolutely.

"Not me, mum; I didn't hear a sound. The kitchen-door was shut all the time Sarah was away, and I was busy at work, and thinking of nothing but my work. I wasn't upon the listen, as you may say."

The kitchen was at the extreme end of the house, remote from that direction whence the unexplainable cry seemed to have come.

"It is most extraordinary," Ellen said gravely, perplexed beyond all measure. "But you, Sarah; if you were upstairs with your master, you must surely have heard that shriek; it seemed to come from upstairs."

"Did master hear it?" asked the girl deliberately.

"He says not."

"Then how should I, mum? No, mum, I didn't hear nothink; I can take my Bible oath of that."

"I don't want any oaths; I only want to know the meaning of this business. There would have been no harm in your screaming. You might just as well speak the truth about it."

"Lor, mum, but it warn't me," answered Sarah Batts with an injured look. "Whatever could go to put it in your head as it was me?"

"It must have been one or other of you two girls. There's no other woman in the house; and as you were upstairs, it seems more likely to have been you. However, there's no use talking any more about it. Only we both heard the scream, didn't we, Mrs. Tadman?"

"I should think we did, indeed," responded the widow with a vehement shudder. "My flesh is all upon the creep at this very moment. I don't think I ever had such a turn in my life."

They went back to the parlour, leaving the two servants still sitting by the fire; Sarah Batts with that look of injured innocence fixed upon her wooden countenance, Martha Holden cheerfully employed in the construction of her Sunday cap. In the parlour the two men were both standing by the table, the stranger with his back to the women as they entered, Stephen Whitelaw facing him. The former seemed to have been counting something, but stopped abruptly as the women came into the room.

There was a little heap of bank-notes lying on the table. Stephen snatched them up hastily, and thrust them in a bundle into his waistcoat-pocket; while the stranger put a strap round a bulky red morocco pocket-book with a more deliberate air, as of one who had nothing to hide from the world.

That guilty furtive air of Stephen's, and, above all, that passage of money between the two men, confirmed Mrs. Tadman in her notion that Wyncomb Farm was going to change hands. She resumed her seat by the fire with a groan, and accepted Ellen's offer of a glass of spirits-and-water with a doleful shake of her head.

"Didn't I tell you so?" she whispered, as Mrs. Whitelaw handed her the comforting beverage.

The stranger was evidently on the point of departure. There was a sound of wheels on the gravel outside the parlour window—the familiar sound of Stephen Whitelaw's chaise-cart; and that gentleman was busy helping his visitor on with his great-coat.

"I shall be late for the last train," said the stranger, "unless your man drives like the very devil."

"He'll drive fast enough, I daresay, if you give him half-a-crown," Mr. Whitelaw answered with a grin; "but don't let him go and do my horse any damage, or you'll have to pay for it."

"Of course. You'd like to get the price of a decent animal out of me for that broken-kneed hard-mouthed brute of yours," replied the stranger with a scornful laugh. "I think there never was such a money-grubbing, grinding, grasping beggar since the world began. However, you've seen the last shilling you're ever likely to get out of me; so make the best of it; and remember, wherever I may be, there are friends of mine in this country who will keep a sharp look-out upon you, and let me know precious quick if you don't stick to your part of our bargain like an honest man, or as nearly like one as nature will allow you to come. And now good-night, Mr. Whitelaw.—Ladies, your humble servant."

He was gone before Ellen or Mrs. Tadman could reply to his parting salutation, had they been disposed to do so. Mr. Whitelaw went out with him, and gave some final directions to the stable-lad who was to drive the chaise-cart, and presently came back to the parlour, looking considerably relieved by his guest's departure.

Mrs. Tadman rushed at once to the expression of her fears.

"Stephen Whitelaw," she exclaimed solemnly, "tell us the worst at once. It's no good keeping things back from us. That man has come here to turn us out of house and home. You've sold Wyncomb."

"Sold Wyncomb! Have you gone crazy, you old fool?" cried Mr. Whitelaw, contemplating his kinswoman with a most evil expression of countenance. "What's put that stuff in your head?"

"Your own doings, Stephen, and that man's. What does he come here for, with his masterful ways, unless it's to turn us out of house and home? What did you show him the house for? Nigh upon an hour you were out of this room with him, if you were a minute. Why did money pass from him to you? I saw you put it in your pocket—a bundle of bank-notes."

"You're a prying old catemeran!" cried Mr. Whitelaw savagely, "and a drunken old fool into the bargain.—Why do you let her muddle herself with the gin-bottle like that, Ellen? You ought to have more respect for my property. You don't call that taking care of your husband's house.—As for you, mother Tadman, if you treat me to any more of this nonsense, you will find yourself turned out of house and home a precious deal sooner than you bargained for; but it won't be because of my selling Wyncomb. Sell Wyncomb, indeed! I've about as much thought of going up in a balloon, as of parting with a rood or a perch of my father's land."

This was a very long speech for Mr. Whitelaw; and, having finished it, he sank into his chair, quite exhausted by the unusual effort, and refreshed himself with copious libations of gin-and-water.

"What was that man here for, then, Stephen? It's only natural I should want to know that," said Mrs. Tadman, abashed, but not struck dumb by her kinsman's reproof.

"What's that to you? Business. Yes, there has been money pass between us, and it's rather a profitable business for me. Perhaps it was horse-racing, perhaps it wasn't. That's about all you've any call to know. I've made money by it, and not lost. And now, don't let me be bothered about it any more, if you and me are to keep friends."

"I'm sure, Stephen," Mrs. Tadman remonstrated in a feebly plaintive tone, "I've no wish to bother you; there's nothing farther from my thoughts; but it's only natural that I should be anxious about a place where I've lived so many years. Not but what I could get my living easy enough elsewhere, as you must know, Stephen, being able to turn my hand to almost anything."

To this feeble protest Mr. Whitelaw vouchsafed no answer. He had lighted his pipe by this time, and was smoking and staring at the fire with his usual stolid air—meditative, it might be, or only ruminant, like one of his own cattle.

But all through that night Mr. Whitelaw, who was not commonly a seer of visions or dreamer of dreams, had his slumbers disturbed by some unwonted perplexity of spirit. His wife lay broad awake, thinking of that prolonged and piercing cry, which seemed to her, the more she meditated upon it, in have been a cry of anguish or of terror, and could not fail to notice this unusual disturbance of her husband's sleep. More than once he muttered to himself in a troubled manner; but his words, for the most part, were incoherent and disjointed—words of which that perplexed listener could make nothing.

Once she heard him say, "A bad job—dangerous business."



CHAPTER XL.

IN PURSUIT.

John Saltram improved daily at Hampton Court. In spite of his fierce impatience to get well, in order to engage in the search for Marian—an impatience which was in itself sufficient to militate against his well-being—he did make considerable progress on the road to recovery. He was still very weak, and it must take time to complete his restoration; but he was no longer the pale ghost of his former self that Gilbert had brought down to the quiet suburb.

It would have been a cruel thing to leave him much alone at such a time, or it would have seemed very cruel to Gilbert Fenton, who had ever present in his memory those old days in Egypt when this man had stood him in such good stead. He remembered the days of his own sickness, and contrived to perform his business duties within the smallest time possible, and so spend the rest of his life in the comfortable sitting-rooms looking out upon Bushy-park on the one side, and on the other upon the pretty high road before the Palace grounds.

Nor was there any sign in the intercourse of those two that the bond of friendship between them was broken. There was, it is true, a something deprecating in John Saltram's manner that had not been common to him of old, and in Gilbert Fenton a deeper gravity than was quite natural; but that was all. It was difficult to believe that any latent spirit of animosity could lurk in the mind of either. In sober truth, Gilbert, in his heart of hearts, had forgiven his treacherous friend. Again and again he had told himself that the wrong he had suffered was an unpardonable offence, a thing not to be forgiven upon any ground whatever. But, lo, when he looked into his mind to discover the smouldering fires of that burning anger which he had felt at first against the traitor, he could find nothing but the gray ashes of a long-expired flame. The wrong had been suffered, and he loved his old friend still. Yes, there was that in his heart for John Saltram which no ill-doing could blot out.

So he tended the convalescent's couch with a quiet devotion that touched the sinner very deeply, and there was a peace between those two which had in it something almost sacred. In the mind of the one there was a remorseful sense of guilt, in the heart of the other a pitying tenderness too deep for words.

One night, as they were together on opposite sides of the fire, John Saltram lying on a low sofa drawn close to the hearth, Gilbert seated lazily in an easy-chair, the invalid broke out suddenly into a kind of apology for his wrong-doing.

The conversation had flagged between them after the tea-things had been removed by the brisk little serving-maid of the lodgings; Gilbert gazing meditatively at the fire, John Saltram so quiet that his companion had thought him asleep.

"I said once that I would tell you all about that business," he began at last, in a sudden spasmodic way; "but, after all there is so little to tell. There is no excuse for what I did; I know that better than you can know it. A man in my position, who had a spark of generosity or honour, would have strangled his miserable passion in its birth, would have gone away directly he discovered his folly, and never looked upon Marian Nowell's face again. I did try to do that, Gilbert. You remember that last night we ever spent together at Lidford—what a feverishly-happy night it was; only a cottage-parlour with a girl's bright face shining in the lamplight, and a man over head and ears in love, but a glimpse of paradise to that man. I meant that it should be the last of my weakness, Gilbert. I had pledged myself to that by all the outspoken oaths wherewith a man can bind himself to do his duty. And I did turn my back upon the scene of my temptation, as you know, heartily resolved never to approach the edge of the pit again. I think if you had stayed in England, Gilbert, if you had been on the spot to defend your own rights, all would have gone well, I should have kept the promise I had made for myself."

"It was so much the more sacred because of my absence, John," Gilbert said.

"Perhaps. After all, I suppose it was only a question of opportunity. That particular devil who tempts men to their dishonour contrived that the business should be made fatally easy for me. You were away, and the coast was clear, you know. I loved you, Gilbert; but there is a passion stronger than the love which a man feels for his dearest friend. I meant most steadfastly to keep my faith with you; but you were away, and that fellow Forster plagued me to come to him. I refused at first—yes, I held out for a couple of months; but the fever was strong upon me—a restless demon not to be exorcised by hard work, or dissipation even, for I tried both. And then before you were at the end of your journey, while you were still a wanderer across the desolate sea, happy in the thought of your dear love's fidelity, my courage gave way all at once, and I went down to Heatherly. And so I saw her, and saw that she loved me—all unworthy as I was; and from that hour I was a lost man; I thought of nothing but winning her."

"If you had only been true to me, even then, John; if you had written to me declaring the truth, and giving me fair warning that you were my rival, how much better it would have been! Think what a torture of suspense, what a world of wasted anger, you might have saved me."

"Yes, it would have been the manlier course, no doubt," the other answered; "but I could not bring myself to that. I could not face the idea of your justifiable wrath. I wanted to win my wife and keep my friend. It was altogether a weak notion, that idea of secrecy, of course, and couldn't hold water for any time, as the result has shown; but I thought you would get over your disappointment quickly—those wounds are apt to heal so speedily—and fall in love elsewhere; and then it would have been easy for me to tell you the truth. So I persuaded my dear love, who was easily induced to do anything I wished, to consent to our secret being kept from you religiously for the time being, and to that end we were married under a false name—not exactly a false name either. You remember my asking you if you had ever heard the name of Holbrook before your hunt after Marian's husband? You said no; yet I think you must have seen the name in some of my old college books. I was christened John Holbrook. My grandmother was one of the Holbrooks of Horley-place, Sussex, people of some importance in their day, and our family were rather proud of the name. But I have dropped it ever since I was a lad."

"No, I don't think I can ever have seen the name; I must surely have remembered it, if I had seen it."

"Perhaps so. Well, Gilbert, there is no more to be said. I loved her, selfishly, after the manner of mankind. I could not bring myself to give her up, and pursued her with a passionate persistence which must plead her excuse. If her uncle had lived, I doubt whether I should ever have succeeded. But his death left the tender womanly heart weakened by sorrow; and so I won her, the dearest, truest wife that ever man was blest withal. Yet, I confess to you, so wayward is my nature, that there have been moments in which I repented my triumph—weak hours of doubt and foreboding, in which I fear that dear girl divined my thoughts. Since our wretched separation I have fancied sometimes that a conviction of this kind on her part is at the root of the business, that she has alienated herself from me, believing—in plain words—that I was tired of her."

"Such an idea as that would scarcely agree with Ellen Carley's account of Marian's state of mind during that last day or two at the Grange. She was eagerly expecting your return, looking forward with delight to the pleasant surprise you were to experience when you heard of Jacob Nowell's will."

"Yes, the girl told me that. Great heavens, why did I not return a few days earlier! I was waiting for money, not caring to go back empty-handed; writing and working like a nigger. I dared not meet my poor girl at her grandfather's, since in so doing I must risk an encounter with you."

After this they talked of Marian's disappearance for some time, going over the same ground very often in their helplessness, and able, at last, to arrive at no satisfactory conclusion. If she were with her father, she was with a bad, unscrupulous man. That was a fact which Gilbert Fenton no longer pretended to deny. They sat talking till late, and parted for the night in very different spirits.

Gilbert had a good deal of hard work in the City on the following day; a batch of foreign correspondence too important to be entrusted to a clerk, and two or three rather particular interviews. All this occupied him up to so late an hour, that he was obliged to sleep in London that night, and to defer his return to Hampton till the next day's business was over. This time he got over his work by an early hour, and was able to catch a train that left Waterloo at half-past five. He felt a little uneasy at having been away from the convalescent so long though he knew that John Saltram was now strong enough to get on tolerably without him, and that the people of the house were careful and kindly, ready at any moment to give assistance if it were wanted.

"Strange," he thought to himself, as the train approached the quiet, river-side village—"strange that I should be so fond of the fellow, in spite of all; that I should care more for his society than that of any man living. It is the mere force of habit, I suppose. After all these years of liking, the link between us is not to be broken, even by the deepest wrong that one man can do another."

The spring twilight was closing in as he crossed the bridge and walked briskly along an avenue of leafless trees at the side of the green. The place had a peaceful rustic look at this dusky hour. There were no traces of that modern spoiler the speculative builder just hereabouts; and the quaint old houses near the barracks, where lights were twinkling feebly here and there, had a look of days that are gone, a touch of that plaintive poetry which pervades all relics of the past. Gilbert felt the charm of the hour; the air still and mild, the silence only broken by the cawing of palatial rooks; and whatever tenderness towards John Saltram there was lurking in his breast seemed to grow upon him as he drew nearer to their lodgings; so that his mood was of the softest when he opened the little garden-gate and went in.

"I will make no further pretence of enmity," he said to himself; "I will not keep up this farce of estrangement. We two will be friends once more. Life is not long enough for the rupture of such a friendship."

There was no light shining in the parlour window, no pleasant home-glow streaming out upon the night. The blank created by this unwonted darkness chilled him somehow, and there was a vague sense of dread in his mind as he opened the door. There was no need to knock. The simple household was untroubled by the fear of burglariously-disposed intruders, and the door was rarely fastened until after dark.

Gilbert went into the parlour; all was dark and silent in the two rooms, which communicated with folding doors, and made one fair-sized apartment. There were no preparations for dinner; he could see that in the deepening dusk. The fire had been evidently neglected, and was at an expiring point.

"John!" he called, stirring the fire with a vigorous hand, whereby he gave it the coup-de-grace, and the last glimmer sank to darkness. "John, what are you doing?"

He fancied the convalescent had fallen asleep upon the sofa in the inner room; but when he went in search of him, he found nothing but emptiness. He rang the bell violently, and the brisk maid-servant came flying in.

"Oh, dear, sir, you did give me and missus such a turn!" she said, gasping, with her hand on her heart, as if that organ had been seriously affected. "We never heard you come in, and when the bell rung——"

"Is Mr. Saltram worse?" Gilbert asked, eagerly.

"Worse, poor dear gentleman; no, sir, I should hope not, though he well may be, for there never was any one so imprudent, not of all the invalids I've ever had to do with—and Hampton is a rare place for invalids. And I feel sure if you'd been here, sir, you wouldn't have let him do it."

"Let him do what? Are you crazy, girl? What, in heaven's name, are you talking of?"

"You wouldn't have let him start off to London post-haste, as he did yesterday afternoon, and scarcely able to stand alone, in a manner of speaking."

"Gone to London! Do you mean to say that my friend Mr. Saltram went to London?"

"Yes, sir; yesterday afternoon between four and five."

"What utter madness! And when did he come back?"

"Lor' bless you, sir, he ain't come back yet. He told missus as his coming back was quite uncertain, and she was not to worry herself about him. She did all she could, almost to going down on her knees, to hinder him going; but it was no use. It was a matter of life and death as he was going upon, he said, and that there was no power on earth could keep him back, not if he was ten times worse than he was. The strange gentleman hadn't been in the house much above a quarter of an hour, when they was both off together in a fly to the station."

"What strange gentleman?"

"A stout middle-aged man, sir, with gray whiskers, that came from London, and asked for you first, and then for Mr. Saltram; and those two hadn't been together more than five minutes, when Mr. Saltram rang the bell in a violent hurry, and told my missus he was going to town immediate, on most particular business, and would she pack him a carpet-bag with a couple of shirts, and so on. And then she tried all she could to turn him from going; but it was no good, as I was telling you, sir, just now. Go he would, and go he did; looking quite flushed and bright-like when he went out, so as you'd have scarcely known how ill he'd been. And he left a bit of a note for you on the chimbley-piece, sir."

Gilbert found the note; a hurried scrawl upon half a sheet, of paper, twisted up hastily, and unsealed.

"She is found, Gilbert," wrote John Saltram. "Proul has traced the father to his lair at last, and my darling is with him. They are lodging at 14, Coleman-street, Tottenham-court-road. I am off this instant. Don't be angry with me, true and faithful friend; I could not rest an hour away from her now that she is found. I have no plan of action, but leave all to the inspiration of the moment. You can follow me whenever you please. Marian must thank you for your goodness to me. Marian must persuade you to forgive my sin against you—Ever yours, J.S."

Follow him! yes, of course. Gilbert had no other thought. And she was found at last, after all their suspense, their torturing anxiety. She was found; and whatever danger there might be in her association with Percival Nowell, she was safe so far, and would be speedily extricated from the perilous alliance by her husband. It seemed at first so happy a thing that Gilbert could scarcely realise it; and yet, throughout the weary interval of ignorance as to her fate, he had always declared his belief in her safety. Had he been really as confident as he had seemed, as the days had gone by, one after another, without bringing him any tidings of her? had there been no shapeless terror in his mind, no dark dread that when the knowledge came, it might be something worse than ignorance? Yes, now in the sudden fulness of his joy, he knew how much he had feared, how very near he had been to despair.

But John Saltram, what of him? Was it not at the hazard of his life that he had gone upon this sudden journey, reckless and excited, in a fever of hope and delight?

"Providence will surely be good to him," Gilbert thought.

"He bore the journey from town when he was much worse than he is now. Surely he will bear a somewhat rougher journey now, buoyed up by hope."

The landlady came in presently, and insisted upon giving Mr. Fenton her own version of the story which he had just heard from her maid; and a very close and elaborate version it was, though not remarkable for any new facts. He was fain to listen to it with a show of patience, however, and to consent to eat a mutton chop which the good woman insisted upon cooking for him, after his confession that he had eaten nothing since breakfast. He kept telling himself that there was no hurry; that he was not wanted in Coleman-street; that his presence there was a question of his own gratification and nothing else; but the fever in his mind was not to be set at rest go easily. There was a sense of hurry upon him that he could not shake off, argue with himself as wisely as he would.

He took a hasty meal, and started off to the railway station directly afterwards, though there was no train to carry, him back to London for nearly an hour.

It was weary work waiting at the little station, while the keen March wind blew sharply across the unsheltered platform on which Gilbert paced to and fro in his restlessness; weary work waiting, with that sense of hurry and anxiety upon him, not to be shaken off by any effort he could make to take a hopeful view of the future. He tried to think of those two whom he loved best on earth, whose union he had taught himself, by a marvellous effort of unselfishness, to contemplate with serenity, tried to think of them in the supreme happiness of their restoration to each other; but he could not bring his mind to the realisation of this picture. After all those torments of doubt and perplexity which he had undergone during the last three months, the simple fact of Marian's safety seemed too good a thing to be true. He was tortured by a vague sense of the unreality of this relief that had come so suddenly to put an end to all perplexities.

"I feel as if I were the victim of some hoax, some miserable delusion," he said to himself. "Not till I see her, not till I clasp her by the hand, shall I believe that she is really given back to us."

And in his eagerness to do this, to put an end to that slow torture of unreasonable doubt which had come upon him since the reading of John Saltram's letter, the delay at the railway station was an almost intolerable ordeal; but the hour came to an end at last, the place awoke from its blank stillness to a faint show of life and motion, a door or two banged, a countrified-looking young woman with a good many bundles and a band-box came out of the waiting-room and arranged her possessions in readiness for the coming train, a porter emerged lazily from some unknown corner and looked up the line—then, after another five minutes of blankness, there came a hoarse throbbing in the distance, a bell rang, and the up-train panted into the station. It was a slow train, unluckily for Gilbert's impatience, which stopped everywhere, and the journey to London took him over an hour. It was past nine when a hansom drove him into Coleman-street, a dull unfrequented-looking thoroughfare between Tottenham-court-road and Gower-street, overshadowed a little by the adjacent gloom of the University Hospital, and altogether a low-spirited street.

Gilbert looked up eagerly at the windows of Number 14, expecting to see lights shining, and some visible sign of rejoicing, even upon the house front; but there was nothing. Either the shutters were shut, or there was no light within, for the windows were blank and dark. It was a slight thing, but enough to intensify that shapeless foreboding against which he had been struggling throughout his journey.

"You must have come to the wrong house," he said to the cabman as he got out.

"No, sir, this is 14."

Yes, it was the right number. Gilbert read it on the door; and yet it could scarcely be the right house; for tied to the door-handle was a placard with "Apartments" engraved upon it, and this house would hardly be large enough to accommodate other lodgers besides Mr. Nowell and his daughter. Yet there is no knowing the capabilities of a London lodging-house in an obscure quarter, and there might be some vacant garret in the roof, or some dreary two-pair back, dignified by the name of "apartments." Gilbert gave a loud hurried knock. There was a delay which seemed to him interminable, then a hasty shuffling of slipshod feet upon the basement stairs, then the glimmer of a light through the keyhole, the removal of a chain, and at last the opening of the door. It was opened by a young person with her hair dressed in the prevailing fashion, and an air of some gentility, which clashed a little with a certain slatternliness that pervaded her attire. She was rather a pretty girl, but had the faded London look of late hours, and precocious cares, instead of the fresh bloom and girlish brightness which should have belonged to her.

"Did you please to wish to see the apartments, sir?" she asked politely.

"No; I want to see Mr. and Mrs.—the lady and gentleman who are lodging here."

He scarcely knew under what name he ought to ask for Marian. It seemed unnatural to him now to speak of her as Mrs. Holbrook.

"The lady and gentleman, sir!" the girl exclaimed with a surprised air. "There's no one lodging here now. Mr. Nowell and his daughter left yesterday morning."

"Left yesterday morning?"

"Yes, sir. They went away to Liverpool; they are going to America—to New York."

"Mr. Nowell and his daughter, Mrs. Holbrook?"

"Yes, sir, that was the lady's name."

"It's impossible," cried Gilbert; "utterly impossible that Mrs. Holbrook would go to America! She has ties that would keep her in England; a husband whom she would never abandon in that manner. There must be some mistake here."

"O no, indeed, sir, there's no mistake. I saw all the luggage labelled with my own eyes, and the direction was New York by steam-packet Oronoco; and Mrs. Holbrook had lots of dresses made, and all sorts of things. And as to her husband, sir, her father told me that he'd treated her very badly, and that she never meant to go back to him again to be made unhappy by him. She was going to New York to live with Mr. Nowell all the rest of her life."

"There must have been some treachery, some underhand work, to bring this about. Did she go of her own free will?"

"O, dear me, yes, sir. Mr. Nowell was kindness itself to her, and she was very fond of him, and pleased to go to America, as far as I could make out."

"And she never seemed depressed or unhappy?"

"I never noticed her being so, sir. They were out a good deal, you see; for Mr. Nowell was a gay gentleman, very fond of pleasure, and he would have Mrs. Holbrook always with him. They were away in Paris ever so long, in January and the beginning of February, but kept on the lodgings all the same. They were very good lodgers."

"Had they many visitors?"

"No, sir; scarcely any one except a gentleman who used to come sometimes of an evening, and sit drinking spirits-and-water with Mr. Nowell; he was his lawyer, I believe, but I never heard his name."

"Did no one come here yesterday to inquire for Mrs. Holbrook towards evening?"

"Yes, sir; there was a gentleman came in a cab. He looked very ill, as pale as death, and was in a dreadful way when he found they were gone. He asked me a great many questions, the same as you've asked me, and I think I never saw any one so cut-up as he seemed. He didn't say much about that either, but it was easy to see it in his face. He wanted to look at the apartments, to see whether he could find anything, an old letter or such-like, that might be a help to him in going after his friends, and mother took him upstairs."

"Did he find anything?"

"No, sir; Mr. Nowell hadn't left so much as a scrap of paper about the place. So the gentleman thanked mother, and went away in the same cab as had brought him."

"Do you know where he was going?"

"I fancy he was going to Liverpool after Mr. Nowell and his daughter. He seemed all in a fever, like a person that's ready to do anything desperate. But I heard him tell the cabman Cavendish-square."

"Cavendish-square! Yes, I can guess where he was going. But what could he want there?" Gilbert said to himself, while the girl stared at him wonderingly, thinking that he, as well as the other gentleman, had gone distraught on account of Mr. Nowell's daughter.

"Thank you for answering my questions so patiently, and good-night," said Gilbert, slipping some silver into her hand; for his quick eye had observed the faded condition of her finery, and a general air of poverty conspicuous in her aspect. "Stay," he added, taking out his card-case; "if you should hear anything farther of these people, I should be much obliged by your sending me word at that address."

"I won't forget, sir; not that I think we're likely to hear any more of them, they being gone straight off to America."

"Perhaps not. But if you do hear anything, let me know."

He had dismissed his cab on alighting in Coleman-street, believing that his journey was ended; but the walk to Cavendish-square was a short one, and he set out at a rapid pace.

The check that had befallen him was a severe one. It seemed a deathblow to all hope, a dreary realization of that vague dread which had pursued him from the first. If Marian had indeed started for America, what new difficulties must needs attend every effort to bring her back; since it was clear that her father's interests were involved in keeping her under his influence, and separating her entirely from her husband. The journey to New York was no doubt intended to secure this state of things. In America, in that vast country, with which this man was familiar with long residence, how easy for him to hide her for ever from her friends! how vain would all inquiries, all researches be likely to prove!

At the ultimate moment, in the hour of hope and rejoicing, he was lost to them irrevocably.

"Yet criminals have been traced upon the other side of the Atlantic, where the police have been prompt to follow them," Gilbert said to himself, glancing for an instant at the more hopeful side of the question; "but not often where they've got anything like a start. Did John Saltram really mean to follow those two to Liverpool, I wonder? Such a journey would seem like madness, in his state; and yet what a triumph if he should have been in time to prevent their starting by the Oronoco!"

And then, after a pause, he asked himself,

"What could he want with Mrs. Branston, at a time when every moment was precious? Money, perhaps. He could have had none with him. Yes, money, no doubt; but I shall discover that from her presently, and may learn something of his plans into the bargain."

Gilbert went into a stationer's shop and purchased a Bradshaw. There was a train leaving Euston station for Liverpool at a quarter to eleven. He might be in time for that, after seeing Mrs. Branston. That lady happened fortunately to be at home, and received Gilbert alone in her favourite back drawing-room, where he found her ensconced in that snug retreat made by the six-leaved Japanese screen, which formed a kind of temple on one side of the fire-place. There had been a final rupture between Adela and Mrs. Pallinson a few days before, and that matron, having shown her cards a little too plainly, had been routed by an unwonted display of spirit on the part of the pretty little widow. She was gone, carrying all her belongings with her, and leaving peace and liberty behind her. The flush of triumph was still upon Mrs. Branston; and this unexpected victory, brief and sudden in its occurrence, like most great victories, was almost a consolation to her for that disappointment which had stricken her so heavily of late.

Adela Branston welcomed her visitor very graciously; but Gilbert had no time to waste upon small talk, and after a hasty apology for his untimely intrusion, dashed at once into the question he had come to ask.

"John Saltram was with you yesterday evening, Mrs. Branston," he said. "Pray tell me the purpose that brought him here, and anything you know of his plan of action after leaving you."

"I can tell you very little about that. He was going upon a journey he told me, that evening, immediately indeed; a most important journey; but he did not tell me where he was going."

"I think I can guess that," said Gilbert. "Did he seem much agitated?"

"No; he was quite calm; but he had a resolute air, like a man who has some great purpose to achieve. I thought him looking very white and weak, and told him that I was sure he was too ill to start upon a long journey, or any journey. I begged him not to go, if it were possible to avoid going, and used every argument I could think of to persuade him to abandon the idea of such a thing. But it was all no use. 'If I had only a dozen hours to live, I must go,' he said."

"He came to ask you for money for his journey, did he not?"

"He did. I suppose to so close a friend as you are to him, there can be no breach of confidence in my admitting that. He came to borrow any ready-money I might happen to have in the house. Fortunately, I had a hundred and twenty pounds by me in hard cash."

"And he took that?—he wanted as much as that?" asked Gilbert eagerly.

"Yes, he said he was likely to require as much as that."

"Then he must have thought of going to America."

"To America! travel to America in his weak state of health?" cried Mrs. Branston, aghast.

"Yes. It seems like madness, does it not? But there are circumstances under which a man may be excused for being almost mad. John Saltram has gone in pursuit of some one very dear to him, some one who has been separated from him by treachery."

"A woman?"

Adela Branston's fair face flushed crimson as she asked the question. A woman? Yes, no doubt he was in pursuit of that woman whom he loved better than her.

"I cannot stop to answer a single question now, my dear Mrs. Branston," Gilbert said gently. "You shall know all by-and-by, and I am sure your generous heart will forgive any wrong that has been done you in this business. Good night. I have to catch a train at a quarter to eleven; I am going to Liverpool."

"After Mr. Saltram?"

"Yes; I do not consider him in a fitting condition to travel alone. I hope to be in time to prevent his doing anything rash."

"But how will you find him?"

"I must make a round of the hotels till I discover his head-quarters. Good night."

"Let me order my carriage to take you to the station."

"A thousand thanks, but I shall be there before your carriage would be ready. I can pick up a cab close by and shall have time to call at my lodgings for a carpet-bag. Once more, good night."

It was still dark when Gilbert Fenton arrived at Liverpool. He threw himself upon a sofa in the waiting-room, where he had an hour or so of uncomfortable, unrefreshing sleep, and then roused himself and went out to begin his round of the hotels.

A surly fly-driver of unknown age and prodigious deafness carried him from house to house; first to all the principal places of entertainment, aristocratic, family, and commercial; then to more obscure taverns and boarding-houses, until the sun was high and the commerce of Liverpool in full swing; and at all these places Gilbert questioned night-porters, and chief waiters, and head chamber-maids, until his brain grew dizzy by mere repetition of his questions; but no positive tidings could he obtain of John Saltram. There was a coffee-house near the quay where it seemed just possible that he had slept; but even here the description was of the vaguest, and the person described might just as well have been John Smith as John Saltram. Gilbert dismissed the fly-man and his vehicle at last, thoroughly wearied out with that morning's work.

He went to one of the hotels, took a hasty breakfast, and then hurried off to the offices belonging to the owners of the Oronoco.

That vessel had started for New York at nine o'clock on the previous morning, and John Saltram had gone with her. His name was the last on the list of passengers; he had only taken his passage an hour before the steamer left Liverpool, but there his name was in black and white. The names of Percival Nowell, and of Mrs. Holbrook, his daughter, were also in the list. The whole business was clear enough, and there was nothing more that Gilbert could do. Had John Saltram been strong and well, his friend would have felt nothing but satisfaction in the thought that he was going in the same vessel with Marian, and would without doubt bring her back in triumph. But the question of his health was a painful one to contemplate. Could he, or could he not endure the strain that he had put upon himself within the last eight-and-forty hours? In desperate straits men can do desperate things—there was always that fact to be remembered; but still John Saltram might break down under the burden he had taken upon himself; and when Gilbert went back to London that afternoon he was sorely anxious about this feeble traveller.

He found a letter from him at the lodgings in Wigmore-street; a hurried letter written at Liverpool the night before John Saltram's departure. He had arrived there too late to get on board the Oronoco that night, and had ascertained that the vessel was to leave at nine next morning.

"I shall take my passage in her in case of the worst," he wrote; "and if I cannot see Marian and persuade her to come on shore with me, I must go with her to New York. Heaven knows what power her father may use against me in the brief opportunity I shall have for seeing her before the vessel starts; but he can't prevent my being their fellow-passenger, and once afloat it shall go hard with me if I cannot make my dear girl hear reason. Do not be uneasy about my health, dear old friend; you see how well I am keeping up under all this strain upon body and mind. You will see me come back from America a new man, strong enough to prove my gratitude for your devotion, in some shape or other, I trust in God."



CHAPTER XLI.

OUTWARD BOUND.

The bustle of departure was at its culminating point when John Saltram went on board the Oronoco, captain and officers scudding hither and thither, giving orders and answering inquiries at every point, with a sharp, short, decisive air, as of commanding powers in the last half-hour before a great battle; steward and his underlings ubiquitous; passengers roaming vaguely to and fro, in quest of nothing particular, and in a state of semi-distraction.

In this scene of confusion there was no one to answer Mr. Saltram's eager inquires about those travellers whom he had pursued to this point. He did contrive, just about ten minutes before the vessel sailed, to capture the ubiquitous steward by the button-hole, and to ask for tidings of Mr. Nowell, before that excited functionary could wrench himself away.

"Mr. Nowell, sir; upon my word, sir, I can't say. Yes, there is a gentleman of that name on board; state-rooms number 5 and 7; got a daughter with him—tall dark gentleman, with a moustache and beard. Yes, sir, he was on deck just now, on the bridge; but I don't see him, I suppose he's gone below. Better look for him in the saloon, sir."

The ten minutes were over before John Saltram had seen half the faces on board the crowded vessel; but in his hurried wanderings to and fro, eager to see that one face which he so ardently desired to behold once wore, he had met nothing but strangers. There was no help for it: the vessel would steam out seaward presently, and he must needs go with her. At the best, he had expected this. It was not likely that, even if he could have obtained speech with his wife, she could have been prevailed upon immediately to desert the father whose fortunes she had elected to follow, and return to shore with the husband she had abandoned. Her mind must have been poisoned, her judgment perverted, before she could have left him thus of her own free will; and it would need the light of calm reason to set things right again. No; John Saltram could scarcely hope to carry her off by a coup-de-main, in the face of the artful schemer who had evidently obtained so strong an influence over her. That she could for a moment contemplate this voyage to America with her father, was enough to demonstrate the revolution that must have taken place in her feelings towards her husband.

"Slander and lies are very strong," John Saltram said to himself; "but I do not think, when my dear love and I are once face to face, any power on earth can prevail against me. She must be changed indeed, if it can; she must be changed indeed, if anything but a lie can part us."

He had come on board the Oronoco prepared for the worst, and furnished with a slender outfit for the voyage, hurriedly purchased at a Liverpool clothier's. He had plenty of money in his pocket—enough to pay for his own and his wife's return passage; and the thought of this useless journey across the Atlantic troubled him very little. What did it matter where he was, if she were with him? The mental torture he had undergone during all this time, in which he had seemed in danger of losing her altogether, had taught him how dear she was—how precious and perfect a treasure he had held so lightly.

The vessel steamed put of the Mersey, and John Saltram, indifferent to the last glimpse of his native land, was still roaming hither and thither, in quest of the familiar face he longed with such a passionate yearning to see; but up to this point he sought for his wife in vain. Mrs. Holbrook had evidently retired at once to her cabin. There was nothing for him to do but to establish a channel of communication with her by means of the stewardess.

He found this official with some trouble, and so desperately busy that it was no easy matter to obtain speech with her, pursued as she was by forlorn and distracted female passengers, clamorously eager to know where she had put that "waterproof cloak," or "Maud," or "travelling-bag," or "dressing-case." He did at last contrive to enlist her services in his behalf, and extort some answer to his questions.

"Yes," she told him, "Mrs. Holbrook was on board—state-room number 7. She had gone to her room at once, but would appear at dinner-time, no doubt, if she wasn't ill."

John Saltram tore a blank leaf from his pocket-book, and wrote one hasty line:

"I am here, Marian; let me see you for God's sake.

"JOHN HOLBROOK."

"If you'll take that to the lady in number 7, I shall be exceedingly obliged," he said to the stewardess, slipping half-a-crown into her willing hand at the same time.

"Yes, sir, this very minute, sir."

John Saltram sat down upon a bench outside the ladies' cabin, in a sort of antechamber between the steward's pantry and store-rooms, strongly perfumed with the odour of grocery, and waited for Marian's coming. He had no shadow of doubt that she would come to him instantly, in defiance of any other guardian or counseller. Whatever lies might have been told her—however she might have been taught to doubt him—he had a perfect faith in the power of his immediate presence. They had but to meet face to face, and all would be well.

Indeed, there was need that things should be well for John Saltram very speedily. He had set nature at defiance so far, acting as if physical weakness were unknown to him. There are periods in a man's life in which nothing seems impossible to him; in which by the mere force of will he triumphs over impossibility. But such conquests are apt to be of the briefest. John Saltram felt that he must very soon break down. The heavily throbbing heart, the aching limbs, the dizzy sight, and parched throat, told him how much this desperate chase had cost him. If he had strength enough to clasp his wife's hand, to give her loving greeting and tell her that he was true, it would be about as much as he could hope to achieve; and then he felt that he would be glad to crawl into any corner of the vessel where he might find rest.

The stewardess came back to him presently, with rather a discomfited air.

"The lady says she is too ill to see any one, sir," she told John Saltram; "but under any circumstances she must decline to see you."

"She said that—my wife told you that?"

"Your wife, sir! Good gracious me, is the lady in number 7 your wife? She came on board with her father, and I understood they were only two in party."

"Yes; she came with her father. Her father's treachery has separated her from me; but a few words would explain everything, if I could only see her."

He thought it best to tell the woman the truth, strange as it might seem to her. Her sympathies were more likely to be enlisted in his favour if she knew the actual state of the case.

"Did Mrs. Holbrook positively decline to see me?" he asked again, scarcely able to believe that Marian could have resisted even that brief appeal scrawled upon a scrap of paper.

"She did indeed, sir," answered the stewardess. "Nothing could be more positive than her manner. I told her how anxious you seemed—for I could see it in your face, you see, sir, when you gave me the paper—and I really didn't like to bring you such a message; but it was no use. 'I decline to see him,' the lady said, 'and be sure you bring me no more messages from this gentleman;' and with that, sir, she tore up the bit of paper, as cool as could be. But, dear me, sir, how ill you do look, to be sure!"

"I have been very ill. I came from a sick-room to follow my wife."

"Hadn't you better go and lie down a little, sir? You look as if you could scarcely stand. Shall I fetch the steward for you?"

"No, thanks. I can find my way to my berth, I daresay. Yes, I suppose I had better go and lie down. I can do no more yet awhile."

He could do no more, and had indeed barely strength to stagger to his sleeping-quarters, which he discovered at last with some difficulty. Here he flung himself down, dressed as he was, and lay like a log, for hours, not sleeping, but powerless to move hand or foot, and with his brain racked by torturing thoughts. "As soon as I am able to stand again, I will see her father, and exact a reckoning from him," he said to himself again and again, during those long dreary hours of prostration; but when the next day came, he was too weak to raise himself from his narrow bed, and on the next day after that he was no better. The steward was much concerned by his feeble condition, especially as it was no common case of sea-sickness; for John Saltram had told him that he was never sea-sick. He brought the prostrate traveller soda-water and brandy, and tried to tempt him to eat rich soups of a nutritious character; but the sick man would take nothing except an occasional draught of soda-water.

On the third day of the voyage the steward was very anxious to bring the ship's surgeon to look at Mr. Saltram; but against this John Saltram resolutely set his face.

"For pity's sake, don't bore me with any more doctors!" he cried fretfully. "I have had enough of that kind of thing. The man can do nothing for me. I am knocked up with over exertion and excitement—that's all; my strength will come back to me sooner or later if I lie quietly here."

The steward gave way, for the time being, upon this appeal, and the surgeon was not summoned; but Mr. Saltram's strength seemed very slow to return to him. He could not sleep; he could only lie there listening to all the noises of the ship, the perpetual creaking and rattling, and tramping of footsteps above his head, and tortured by his impatience to be astir again. He would not stand upon punctilio this time, he told himself; he would go straight to the door of Marian's cabin, and stand there until she came out to him. Was she not his wife—his very own—powerless to hold him at bay in this manner? His strength did not come back to him; that wakeful prostration in which the brain was always busy, while the aching body lay still, did not appear to be a curative process. In the course of that third night of the voyage John Saltram was delirious, much to the alarm of his fellow-passenger, the single sharer of his cabin, a nervous elderly gentleman, who objected to his illness altogether as an outrage upon himself, and was indignantly desirous to know whether it was contagious.

So the doctor was brought to the sick man early next morning whether he would or not, and went through the usual investigations, and promised to administer the usual sedatives, and assured the anxious passenger that Mr. Saltram's complaint was in nowise infectious.

"He has evidently been suffering from serious illness lately, and has been over-exerting himself," said the doctor; "that seems very clear. We shall contrive to bring him round in a few days, I daresay, though he certainly has got into a very low state."

The doctor said this rather gravely, on which the passenger again became disturbed of aspect. A death on board ship must needs be such an unpleasant business, and he really had not bargained for anything of that kind. What was the use of paying first-class fare on board a first-class vessel, if one were subject to annoyance of this sort? In the steerage of an overcrowded emigrant ship such a thing might be a matter of course—a mere natural incident of the voyage—but on board the Oronoco it was most unlooked for.

"He's not going to die, is he?" asked the passenger, with an injured air.

"O dear, no, I should hope not. I have no apprehension of that sort," replied the surgeon promptly.

He would no doubt have said the same thing up to within an hour or so of the patient's decease.

"There is an extreme debility, that is all," he went on quite cheerfully; "and if we can induce him to take plenty of nourishment, we shall get on very well, I daresay."

After this the nervous passenger was profoundly interested in the amount of refreshment consumed by the patient, and questioned the steward about him with a most sympathetic air.

John Saltram, otherwise John Holbrook, was not destined to die upon this outward voyage. He was very eager to be well, or at least to be at liberty to move about again; and perhaps this impatient desire of his helped in some measure to bring about his recovery. The will, physiologists tell us, has a great deal to do with these things.

The voyage was a prosperous one. The good ship steamed gaily across the Atlantic through the bleak spring weather; and there was plenty of eating and drinking, and joviality and flirtation on board her, while John Saltram lay upon his back, very helpless, languishing to be astir once more.

During these long dreary days and nights he had contrived to send several messages to the lady in the state-cabin, feeble pencil scrawls, imploring her to come to him, telling her that he was very ill, at death's door almost, and desired nothing so much as to see her, if only for a moment. But the answer—by word of mouth of the steward or stewardess always—was unfailingly to the same effect:—the lady in number 7 refused to hold any communication with the sick gentleman.

"She's a hard one!" the steward remarked to the stewardess, when they talked the matter over in a comfortable manner during the progress of a snug little supper in the steward's cabin, "she must be an out-and-out hard-hearted one to stand out against him like that, if he is her husband, and I suppose he is. I told her to-day—when I took his message—how bad he was, and that it was a chance if he ever went ashore alive; but she was walking up and down deck with her father ten minutes afterwards, laughing and talking like anything. I suppose he's been a bad lot, Mrs. Peterson, and deserves no better from her; but still it does seem hard to see him lying there, and his wife so near him, and yet refusing to go and see him."

"I've no common patience with her," said the stewardess with acrimony; "the cold-hearted creature!—flaunting about like that, with a sick husband within a stone's throw of her. Suppose he is to blame, Mr. Martin; whatever his faults may have been, it isn't the time for a wife to remember them."

To this Mr. Martin responded dubiously, remarking that there were some carryings on upon the part of husbands which it was difficult for a wife not to remember.

The good ship sped on, unhindered by adverse winds or foul weather, and was within twenty-four hours of her destination when John Saltram was at last able to crawl out of the cabin, where he had lain for some eight or nine days crippled and helpless.

The first purpose which he set himself to accomplish was an interview with Marian's father. He wanted to grapple his enemy somehow—to ascertain the nature of the game that was being played against him. He had kept himself very quiet for this purpose, wishing to take Percival Nowell by surprise; and on this last day but one of the voyage, when he was able for the first time to rise from his berth, no one but the steward and the surgeon knew that he intended so to rise.

He had taken the steward in some measure into his confidence; and that official, after helping him to dress, left him seated in the cabin, while he went to ascertain the whereabouts of Mr. Nowell. Mr. Martin, the steward, came back after about five minutes.

"He's in the saloon, sir, reading, quite alone. You couldn't have a better opportunity of speaking to him."

"That's a good fellow. Then I'll go at once."

"You'd better take my arm, sir; you're as weak as a baby, and the ship lurches a good deal to-day."

"I'm not very strong, certainly. I begin to think I never shall be strong again. Do you know, Martin, I was once stroke in a university eight. Not much vigour in my biceps now, eh?"

It was only a few paces from one cabin to the other; but Mr. Saltram could scarcely have gone so far without the steward's supporting arm. He was a feeble-looking figure, with a white wan face, as he tottered along the narrow passage between the tables, making his way to that end of the saloon where Percival Nowell lounged luxuriously, with his legs stretched at full length upon the sofa, and a book in his hand.

"Mr. Nowell, I believe," said the sick man, as the other looked up at him with consummate coolness. Whatever his feelings might be with regard to his daughter's husband, he had had ample time to prepare himself for an encounter with him.

"Yes, my name is Nowell. But I have really not the honour to——"

"You do not know me," answered John Saltram. "No, but it is time you did so. I am your daughter's husband, John Holbrook."

"Indeed. I have heard that she has been persecuted by the messages of some person calling himself her husband. You are that person, I presume."

"I have tried to persuade my wife to see me. Yes; and I mean to see her before this vessel arrives in port."

"But if the lady in question refuses to have anything to say to you?"

"We shall soon put that to the test. I have been too ill to stir ever since I came on board, or you would have heard of me before this, Mr. Nowell. Now that I can move about once more, I shall find a way to assert my claims, you may be sure. But in the first place, I want to know by what right you stole my wife away from her home—by what right you brought her on this voyage?"