h a wrong.

So friendship was at an end between those two, and that was all; it was
only the utter severance of a tie that had lasted for years, nothing
more. Yet to Gilbert it seemed a great deal. His little world had
crumbled to ashes; love had perished, and now friendship had died this
sudden bitter death, from which there was no possible resurrection.

In the midst of such thoughts as these he remembered the sick man's
medicine. Mrs. Pratt had given him a few hurried directions before
departing on her errand. He looked at his watch, and then went over to
the table and prepared the draught and administered it with a firm and
gentle hand.

"Who's that?" John Saltram muttered faintly. "It seems like the touch of
a friend."

He dropped back upon the pillow without waiting for any reply, and fell
into a string of low incoherent talk, with closed eyes.

The laundress was a long time gone, and Gilbert sat alone in the dismal
little bedroom, where there had never been the smallest attempt at
comfort since John Saltram had occupied it. He sat alone, or with that
awful companionship of one whose mind was far away, which was so much
more dreary than actual loneliness--sat brooding over the history of his
friend's treachery.

What had he done with Marian? Was her disappearance any work of his,
after all? Had he hidden her away for some secret reason of his own, and
then acted out the play by pretending to search for her? Knowing him for
the traitor he was, could Gilbert Fenton draw any positive line of
demarcation between the amount of guilt which was possible and that which
was not possible to him?

What had he done with Marian? How soon would he be able to answer that
question? or would he ever be able to answer it? The thought of this
delay was torture to Gilbert Fenton. He had come here to-day thinking to
make an end of all his doubts, to force an avowal of the truth from those
false lips. And behold, a hand stronger than his held him back. His
interrogation must await the answer to that awful question--life or
death.

The woman came in presently, bustling and out of breath. She had found a
very trustworthy person, recommended by Mr. Mew's assistant--a person who
would come that evening without fail.

"It was all the way up at Islington, sir, and I paid the cabman
three-and-six altogether, which he said it were his fare. And how has the
poor dear been while I was away?" asked Mrs. Pratt, with her head on one
sid