Fenton's Quest

nearly ten months of exile. He had found hard work to do in the colonial city, a

ums made away with by him amounted to some thousands. Gilbert found that he had been leading a life of reckless extravagance, and was a notorious gambler. So there came an evening when

ought him letters from Marian and her uncle, and one short note from John Saltram. The mails that followed brought him nothing, and he was inexpressibly alarmed and distressed by this fact. If he could by any possibility have returned to England immediately after the arr

here had been bad news, it must needs have come to him; that the delay was only the result of accident, some mistake of Marian's as to the date of the mail. What more natural than that she should make such a mistake, at a place with such deficient postal arrangements as th

ainst his cabin window, and he lay broad awake counting the hours that must wear themselves out before he could set foot on English ground. As the time of his arrival d

day, and Gilbert was amongst those eager pa

e to him. As he paced to and fro the long platform waiting for the London express, he wondered how he had borne all the previous dela

ir account to be as desperate and hopeless as the condition of all commerce appears invariably to be whenever commercial matters come under discussion. Gilbert Fenton was not interes

arrived at this place, and chartered a fly to take him over to Lidford-a lovely summer afternoon. The sight of the familiar English scenery, looking so exquisite in its summer glory, filled him with a pleas

about those he had come to see. His heart was beating tumultuously in expectation of the meeting that seemed so near. He alighted from the fly, dismissed the driver, and walked rapidly across a field leading by a short cut to the green on which Captain Sedgewick's hous

losed, and there was a board above the

mbered in such exquisite order, had a weedy dilapidated look that seemed like the decay of some considerable time. He rang the bell several times, but there was no answer; and he was turning away from the gate w

uiries about the last occupants o

huskily, looking at her

usy at work in her garden, which was much smaller than th

ccurred. The care of this cottage occupied all her days, and formed the delight and glory of her life. It was a little larger than a g

few moments, sir," said this lady, opening her garden-gate. "I sha

Gilbert, following her int

this time, telling himself that this desertion of Haz

ot on visiting terms with Captain Sedgewick and Miss Nowell, although we bowed to each other out of doors. I am only a tradesman's daughter-indeed my brother is now car

y have gone?" Gilbert asked, eager to stop this

she repeated. "Dear, dea

ot know

n Sedgewic

ar old friend! W

the night, poor dear gentleman, and it was only discovered when the servant went to ca

er leave the cottage? She is

nt away altogether about a mon

did s

rd up, you might have knocked me down with a feather. Miss Nowell was so much liked in Lidford, and she had more than one invitation from friends to stay wit

ne in the place who knows where

iss Nowell when I paid my rent the other day. He said he supposed she had gone away to be married. That has bee

ack to fulfil my engagement to Miss Nowell. Can you sugg

ll, and were extremely kind to her after her uncle's death

lbert answered; "thank

ittle garden, watching him with profound interest as he walked away towards th

was now past seven o'clock. He had met Mr. and Mrs. Marc

is snug dining-room, looking lazily out at a group of sons and daughters playing croque

" Gilbert began; "and the pressing nature of my

s near you; and take some of those strawberries, on which my wife prides herself amazingly. People who live in the country all their

present. I think you know tha

o stay with friends of yours, and that the marriage would, in all probability, take place at an early period, without any strict o

w where she went on

ee times after the Captain's death, and were even anxious that she should come here to stay for a short time; but she would

othing of her intent

a w

him nothing. Whom next could he question? He knew all Marian's friends, and he spent the next day in calling upon

nearly all the time of his residence at Lidford, and whom Gilbert had conciliated by numerous gifts during his visits t

ord, but had taken service in a grocer's family at Fairleigh. Having discovered this, Mr. Fenton set off immediately for th

t spanned it. Mr. Fenton, having duly stated his business, was shown into the grocer's best parlour-a resplendent apartment, where there were more ornaments in the way of shell-and-feather flowers under glass shades, and Bohemian glass scent-bottles, than were consistent with luxurious occupation, and where every chair and sofa wa

deal of persuasion, she did go out sometimes of an afternoon, but she wouldn't ask any one to walk with her, though there were plenty she might have asked-the young ladies from the Rectory and others. She preferred being alone, she told me, and I was glad that she should get the air and the change anyhow. She brightened a little after this, but very little. It was all of a sudden one day that she told me she was going away. I wanted to go with her, but she said that couldn't be. I asked her where she was going, and she told me, after hesitating a little, that she was going to friends in London. I knew she had been very fond of two young ladies that she went to school with at Lidford, whose father lived in London; and I thought it was to their house she was going. I asked her if it was, and she said yes. She made arrangeme

go? From the

to the cottage for her and her luggage. I wanted to go to th

g the time that followed

e in a strange pitiful sort of way, and shake her head. 'I am very miserable, Sarah,' she would say to me; 'I am quite alone in the world now my dear uncle is gone, and I don't

s of her friends in London-the young

that time, in St. John's-wood. I have heard Miss Nowell say that

tions with regard to the future-that she should have sent me no announcement of her uncle's death, although she must have known how well I loved him. I am going to ask you a question that is very p

re? Miss Nowell knew so few gentlemen, and saw no one except the

en some one out-of-doors. You say she always went

d natural enough that she should like

without some powerful motive. Heaven only knows what it may have been. The business of my life will be

dings from this gentleman, except the fact that the money realised by the Captain's furniture had been sent to Miss Nowell at a post-office in the City, and had been duly acknowledged by her, after a delay of about a week. The auctioneer sho

anite recorded the virtues of the dead. It lay in the prettiest, most retired part of the churchyard, half-hidden under a wide-spreading yew. Gilbert

ed her girlish trust in me, her innocent gratitude for my attentions, as the evidence of her love. Even at the last, when she wanted to release me, I would not understand. I did not expect to be loved as I loved her. I would have given so much, and been content to take so little. What is th

ed his lips to the granite on which G

that reverent attitude. "I owe it to the dead to penetrate the secret of her new

sister's comments on Marian's conduct, and to perceive the suppressed exultation with which she would most likely h