ardly with me three weeks
from first to last."

"Did she seem happy in her mind during that time?" Gilbert asked.

"Well, no; I cannot say that she did. I should have expected to see a
young lady that was going to be married to the man she loved much more
cheerful and hopeful about the future than Miss Nowell was. She told me
that her uncle had not been dead many weeks, and I thought at first that
this was the only grief she had on her mind; but after some time, when I
found her very low and downhearted, and had won upon her to trust me
almost as if I had been an old friend, she owned to me that she had
behaved very badly to a gentleman she had been engaged to, and that the
thought of her wickedness to him preyed upon her mind. 'I don't think any
good can ever come of my marriage, Miss Long,' she said to me; 'I think I
must surely be punished for my falsehood to the good man who loved me so
truly. But there are some things in life that seem like fate. They come
upon us in a moment, and we have no strength to fight against them. I
believe it was my fate to love John Holbrook. There is nothing in this
world I could refuse to do for his sake. If he had asked me for my life,
I must have given it to him as freely as I gave him my love. From the
first hour in which I saw him he was my master.'"

"This Mr. Holbrook was very fond of her, I suppose?"

"I daresay he was, sir; but he was not a man that showed his feelings
very much. They used to go for long walks together, though it was March
and cold windy weather, and she always seemed happier when he brought her
home. He came every evening to drink tea with her, and I used to hear
them talking as I sat at work in the next room. She was happy enough when
he was with her. It was only when she was alone that she would give way
to low spirits and gloomy thoughts about the future."

"Did she ever tell you anything about Mr. Holbrook--his position or
profession? how long she had known him? how and where they had first
met?"

"No, sir. She told me once that he was not rich; I think that is about
all she ever said of him, except when she spoke of his influence over
her, and her trust in him."

"Have you any idea where they were going to live after their marriage?"

"I cannot tell you the name of the place. Miss Nowell said that a friend
of Mr. Holbrook's was going to lend him an old farm-house in a very
pretty part of the country. It would be very lonely, she said, and her
hus