very strong reason for secrecy, and
my experience of life has shown me that there is very seldom mystery
without wrong doing of some kind behind it. I thank God that Mrs.
Holbrook is safe, for I suppose I must accept your assurance that she is
so; but until her position is relieved from all this secrecy, I shall not
cease to feel uneasy as to her welfare. I am glad, however, that the
issue of events has exonerated her husband from any part in her
disappearance."

He was glad to know this--glad to know that however base a traitor to
himself, John Saltram had not been guilty of that deeper villany which he
had at times been led to suspect. Gilbert Fenton left Mr. Medler's office
a happier man than when he had entered it, and yet only half satisfied.
It was a great thing to know that Marian was safe; but he would have
wished her in the keeping of any one rather than of him whom the world
would have called her natural protector.

Nor was his opinion of Mr. Medler by any means an exalted one. No
assertion, of that gentleman inspired him with heart-felt confidence; and
he had not left the lawyer's office long before he began to ask himself
whether there was truth in any portion of the story he had heard, or
whether he was not the dupe of a lie.

Strange that Marian's father should have returned at so opportune a
moment; still more strange that Marian should suddenly desert the husband
she had so devotedly loved, and cast in her lot with a father of whom she
knew nothing but his unkindness. What if this man Medler had been, lying
to him from first to last, and was plotting to get old Jacob Nowell's
fortune into his own hands?

"I must find her," Gilbert said to himself; "I must be certain that she
is in safe hands. I shall know no rest till I have found her."

Harassed and perplexed beyond measure, he walked through the busy streets
of that central district for some time without knowing where he was
going, and without the faintest purpose in his steps. Then the notion
suddenly flashed upon him that he might hear something of Percival
Nowell at the shop in Queen Anne's Court, supposing the old business to
be still carried on there under the sway of Mr. Tulliver; and it seemed
too early yet for the probability of any change in that quarter.

Gilbert was in the Strand when this notion occurred to him. He turned his
steps immediately, and went back to Wardour-street, and thence to the
dingy court where he had first discovere