Gilbert was inclined to believe that Jacob Nowell was a much richer man than he cared to confess, and that the fortune which Marian Nowell might inherit in the future was a considerable one. The old man had all the attributes of a miser. The house in which he lived had the aspect of a place in which money has been made and hoarded day by day through long dull years.

It was not until the end of October that John Saltram made his appearance at his old friend's lodgings. He had just come up from the country, and was looking his best-brighter and younger than Gilbert had seen him look for a long time.

My dear Jack, I began to think I should never see you again. What have you been doing all this time, and where have you been?' I have been hard at work, as usual, for the reviews, down Oxford way, at a little place on the river. And how has the world been going with you, Gilbert? I saw your advertisement offering a reward for evidence of Miss Nowell's marriage. Was there any result?'

'Yes; I know all about the marriage now, but I don't know who or what the man is,' Gilbert answered; and then went on to give his friend a detailed account of his experience at Wygrove, and his visit to Sir David Forster.

'My dear foolish Gilbert,' said John Saltram, how much useless trouble you have given yourself! Was it not enough to know that this girl had broken faith with you? I think, were I in your place, that would be the end of the story for me. And now you know more than that you know that she is another man's wife. If you find her, nothing can come of it.'

It is the man I want to find, John; the man whom I shall make it the business of my life to discover.'

For what good?'

For the deadliest harm to him,' Gilbert answered moodily. If ever he and I meet, I will have some payment for my broken life ; some compensation for my ruined hopes. We two should not meet and part lightly, rely upon it.'

You can make no excuse for his love-that fatal irresistible passion, which outweighs truth and honour when they are set in the opposite scale. I did not think you could be so hard, Gilbert; I thought you would have more mercy on the man who wronged you.'

I could pardon any injury but this. I will never forgive this.' John Saltram shrugged his shoulders with a deprecating air.

It is a mistake, my dear fellow,' he said. Life is not long. enough for these strong passions. There is nothing in the world worth the price these bitter hatreds and stormy angers cost us. You have thrown away a great deal of deep feeling on a lady, whose misfortune it was not to be able to return your affection as she

might have done-as you most fully deserved at her hands. Why waste any farther emotion in regrets that are as useless as they are foolish ?'

You may as well ask me why I exist,' Gilbert answered quietly. 'Regret for all I have lost is a part of my life.'

After this there was no more to be said, and Mr. Saltram went on to speak of pleasanter topics. The two men dined together, and sat by the fire afterwards with a bottle of claret between them, smoking their cigars, and talking till late into the night.

It was not to be supposed that Adela Branston's name could be omitted entirely from this confidential talk.

'I have seen nothing and heard very little of her while I have been away,' John Saltram said, in answer to a question of Gilbert's; 'but I called in Cavendish-square this afternoon, and was fortunate enough to find her at home. She wants me to dine with her next Sunday, and I half promised to do so. Will you come too? I know that she would be glad to see you.'

I cannot see that I am wanted, John.' 'But I tell you that you are wanted. I wish you to go with Mrs. Branston likes you amazingly, if you care to know the opinion of so frivolous a person.'

me.

'I am very much flattered by Mrs. Branston's kindly estimate of me, but I do not think I have any claim to it, except the fact that I am your friend. I shall be happy to go with you on Sunday, if you really wish it.'

'I do really wish it. I shall drop Mrs. Branston a line to say you will come. She asked me to bring you whenever I had an opportunity. The dinner-hour is seven. I'll call for you here a few minutes before. I don't promise you a very lively evening, remember. There will only be Adela, and a lady she has taken as her companion.'

'I don't care about lively evenings. I have been nowhere in society since I returned from Melbourne. I have done with all that kind of thing.'

'My dear Gilbert, that sort of renunciation will never do,' John Saltram said earnestly. A man cannot turn his back upon society at your age. Life lies all before you, and it rests with yourself to create a happy future. Let the dead bury their dead.' 'Yes, John; and what is left for the living when that burial is over? I don't want to make myself obnoxious by whining over my troubles, but they are not to be lessened by philosophy, and I can do nothing but bear them as best I may. I had long been growing tired of society, in the conventional acceptation of the word, and all the stereotyped pleasures of a commercial man's life. Those things are less than nothing when a man has nothing brighter and fairer beyond them—no inner life by which the common things of this world are made precious. It is only dropping out of the arena a little

earlier than I might have done otherwise. I have a notion that I shall wind-up my affairs next year, sell my business, and go abroad. I could manage to retire upon a very decent income, in spite of my losses the other day.'

'Don't dream of that, Gilbert; for heaven's sake, don't dream of anything so mad as that. What would a man of your age be without some kind of career? A mere purposeless wanderer on the face of the earth. Stick to business, dear old fellow. Believe me, there is nothing like work to make a man forget any foolish trouble of this kind. And you will forget it, Gilbert, be assured of that. If I were not certain it would be so, I should-'

He stopped suddenly, staring absently at the fire with a darkening brow.

Hate this man Holbrook almost as savagely as you hate him, for having come between you and your happiness. Yet, if Marian Nowell did not love you-as a wife should love her husband, with all her heart and soul-it was ten thousand times better that the knot should be cut in time, however roughly. Think what your misery would have been if you had discovered after your marriage that her heart had never been really yours!'

'I cannot imagine that possible. I have no shadow of doubt that I should have succeeded in winning her heart if this man had not robbed me of her. My absence gave him his opportunity. Had I been at hand to protect my own interests, I do not think his influence could have prevailed against me.'

It is quite natural that you should think that,' John Saltram said gravely. Yet you may be mistaken. A woman's love is such a capricious thing, and so often bestowed upon the least deserving amongst those who seek it.'

After this they were silent for some time, and then Gilbert told his friend about his acquaintance with Jacob Nowell, and the old man's futile endeavours to find his grandchild; to all of which Mr. Saltram listened attentively.

'Then you fancy there is a good bit of money in question?' he said, when Gilbert had told him everything.

The

'I fancy so. But I have no actual ground for the belief. place in which the old man lives is poor enough, and he has carefully abstained from any hint as to what he might leave his granddaughter. Whatever it is, Marian ought to have it; and there is very little chance of that, unless she comes forward in response to Mr. Nowell's advertisements.'

'It is a pity she should lose the chance of this inheritance, certainly,' said Mr. Saltram.

And then the conversation changed, and they talked of other subjects until it was time for them to part.

John Saltram walked back to the Temple in a very sombre mood, meditating upon his friend's trouble.

Poor old Gilbert,' he said to himself, this business has touched. him more deeply than I could have thought possible. I wish things had happened otherwise. What is it Lady Macbeth says? "Naught's had, all's spent, when our desire is got without content." I wonder whether the fulfilment of one's heart's desire ever does bring perfect contentment? I think not. There is always something wanting. And if a man comes by his wish basely, there is a taint of poison in the wine of life that neutralises all its sweetness.'

CHAPTER XIII.

MRS. PALLINSON HAS VIEWS.

AT seven o'clock on Sunday evening, as the neighbouring church bells were just sounding their last peal, Mr. Fenton found himself on the threshold of Mrs. Branston's house in Cavendish-square. It was rather a gloomy mansion, pervaded throughout with evidences of its late owner's oriental career: old Indian cabinets; ponderous chairs of elaborately-carved ebony, clumsy in form and barbaric in design; curious old china and lacquered ware of every kind, from gigantic vases to the tiniest cups and saucers; ivory temples, and gods in silver and clay, crowded the drawing-rooms and the broad landings on the staircase. The curtains and chair-covers were of Indian embroidery; the carpets of oriental manufacture. Everything had a gaudy semi-barbarous aspect.

Mrs. Branston received her guests in the back drawing-room, a smaller and somewhat snugger apartment than the spacious chamber in front, which was dimly visible in the light of a single moderator lamp and the red glow of a fire through the wide-open archway between the two rooms. In the inner room the lamps were brighter, and the fire burned cheerily; and here Mrs. Branston had established for herself a comfortable nook in a deep velvet-cushioned armchair, very low and capacious, sheltered luxuriously from possible draughts by a high seven-leaved Japanese screen. The fair Adela was a chilly personage, and liked to bask in her easy-chair before the fire. She looked very pretty this evening, in her dense black dress, with the airiest pretence of a widow's cap perched on her rich auburn hair, and a voluminous Indian shawl of vivid scarlet making a drapery about her shoulders. She was evidently very pleased to see John Saltram, and gave a cordial welcome to his friend. On the opposite side of the fire-place there was a tall rather grim-looking lady, also in mourning, and with an elaborate headdress of bugles and ornaments of a feathery and beady nature, which were supposed to be flowers. About her neck this lady wore numerous rows of jet beads, from which depended crosses and lockets of

the same material; she had jet earrings and jet bracelets; and had altogether a beaded and bugled appearance, which would have been eminently fascinating to the untutored taste of a North-American Indian.

This lady was Mrs. Pallinson, a widow of limited means, and a distant relation of Adela Branston's. Left quite alone after her husband's death, and feeling herself thoroughly helpless, Adela had summoned this experienced matron to her aid; whereupon Mrs. Pallinson had given up a small establishment in the far north of London, which she was in the habit of speaking about on occasions as her humble dwelling, and had taken up her quarters in Cavendish-square, where she was a power of dread to the servants.

Gilbert fancied that Mrs. Pallinson was by no means too favourably disposed towards John Saltram. She had sharp black eyes, very much like the jet beads with which her person was decorated, and with these she kept a close watch upon Mrs. Branston and Mr. Saltram when the two were talking together. Gilbert saw how great an effort it cost her at these times to keep up the commonplace conversation which he had commenced with her, and how intently she was trying to listen to the talk upon the other side of the fireplace.

The dinner was an admirable one, the wines perfection, Mr. Branston having been a past-master of the art of good living, and having stocked his cellars with a view to a much longer life than had been granted to him; the attendance was careful and complete; the dining-room, with its rather old-fashioned furniture and heavy crimson hangings, a picture of comfort; and Mrs. Branston a most charming hostess. Even Gilbert was fain to forget his own troubles and enjoy life a little in that agreeable society.

The two gentlemen accompanied the ladies back to the drawingroom. There was a grand piano in the front room, and to this Adela Branston went at Mr. Saltram's request, and began to play some of Handel's oratorio music, while he stood beside the piano, talking to her as she played. Mrs. Pallinson and Gilbert were thus left alone in the back room, and the lady did her best to improve the occasion by extorting what information she could from Mr. Fenton about his friend.

'Adela tells me that you and Mr. Saltram are friends of very long standing, Mr. Fenton,' she began, fanning herself slowly with a shining black fan as she sat opposite Gilbert, awful of aspect in the sombre splendour of her beads and bugles.

'Yes; we were at Oxford together, and have been fast friends ever since.'

Indeed!-how really delightful! The young men of the present day appear to me generally so incapable of a sincere friendship. you and Mr. Saltram have been friends all that time? He is a

And