event of her father having died previously, the husband would come in as
heir-at-law. You see it was not easy to exclude the husband altogether."

"And do you believe that Mr. Nowell is still living to claim his
inheritance?"

"I believe so. I fancy the old man had some tidings of his son before the
will was executed; that he, in short, heard of his having been met with
not long ago, over in America."

"No doubt he will speedily put in an appearance now," said Gilbert
bitterly--"now that there is a fortune to be gained by the assertion of
his identity."

"Humph!" muttered the lawyer. "It would not be very easy for him to put
his hand on sixpence of Jacob Nowell's money, in the absence of any proof
of Mrs. Holbrook's death. There would be no end of appeals to the Court
of Chancery; and after all manner of formulas he might obtain a decree
that would lock up the property for twenty-four years. I doubt, if the
executor chose to stick to technicals, and the business got into
chancery, whether Percival Nowell would live long enough to profit by his
father's will."

"I am glad of that," said Gilbert. "I know the man to be a scoundrel, and
I am very glad that he is unlikely to be a gainer by any misfortune that
has befallen his daughter. Had it been otherwise, I should have been
inclined to think that he had had some hand in this disappearance."

The lawyer looked at Mr. Fenton with a sharp inquisitive glance.

"In other words, you would imply that Percival Nowell may have made away
with his daughter. You must have a very bad opinion of human nature, Mr.
Fenton, to conceive anything so horrible."

"My suspicions do not go quite so far as that," said Gilbert. "God forbid
that it should be so. I have a firm belief that Marian Holbrook lives.
But it is possible to get a person out of the way without the last worst
crime of which mankind is capable."

"It would seem more natural to suspect the husband than the father, I
should imagine," Mr. Medler answered, after a thoughtful pause.

"I cannot see that. The husband had nothing to gain by his wife's
disappearance, and everything to lose."

"He might have supposed the father to be dead, and that he would step
into the fortune. He might not know enough of the law of property to be
aware of the difficulties attending a succession of that kind. There is a
most extraordinary ignorance of the law of the land prevailing among
well-educated Englishmen. Or he may have been tire