that
he had already some reason to reproach himself for his neglect of
business.

He left Lidford happy in the thought that Captain Sedgewick and Marian
were to come to London in October. The period of separation would be
something less than a month. And after that? Well, he would of course
spend Christmas at Lidford; and he fancied how the holly and mistletoe,
the church-decorations and carol-singing, and all the stereotyped
genialities of the season,--things that had seemed trite and dreary to
him since the days of his boyhood,--would have a new significance and
beauty for him when he and Marian kept the sacred festival together. And
then how quickly would begin the new year, the year whose spring-tide
would see them man and wife! Perhaps there is no period of this mortal
life so truly happy as that in which all our thoughts are occupied in
looking forward to some great joy to come. Whether the joy, when it does
come, is ever so unqualified a delight as it seemed in the distance, or
whether it ever comes at all, are questions which we have all solved for
ourselves somehow or other. To Gilbert Fenton these day-dreams were
bright and new, and he was troubled by no fear of their not being
realized.

He went at his business with considerable ardour, and made a careful and
detailed investigation of all affairs connected with their Melbourne
trading, assisted throughout by Samuel Dwyer, the old clerk. The result
of his examination convinced him that his cousin had been playing him
false; that the men with whom his pretended losses had been made were men
of straw, and the transactions were shadows invented to cover his own
embezzlements. It was a complicated business altogether; and it was not
until Gilbert Fenton had been engaged upon it for more than a week, and
had made searching inquiries as to the status of the firms with which the
supposed dealings had taken place, that he was able to arrive at this
conclusion. Having at last made himself master of the real state of
things, as far as it was in any way possible to do so at that distance
from the scene of action, Gilbert saw that there was only one line of
conduct open to him as a man of business. That was to go at once to
Melbourne, investigate his cousin's transactions on the spot, and take
the management of the colonial house into his own hands. To do this would
be a sore trial to him, for it would involve the postponement of his
marriage. He could scarcely hope to