How well Gilbert remembered those little family treasures, which she had exhibited to him at Captain Sedgewick’s bidding!

“Ah,” muttered the officer when he heard this, “quite enough to cost her her life, if she met with one of your ugly customers.  I’ve known a murder committed for the sake of three-and-sixpence in my time; and pushing a young woman into the river don’t count for murder among that sort of people.  You see, some one may come by and fish her out again; so it can’t well be more than manslaughter.”

A dull horror came over Gilbert Fenton as he heard these professional speculations, but at the worst he could not bring himself to believe that these men were right, and that the woman he loved had been the victim of some obscure wretch’s greed, slain in broad daylight for the sake of a few pounds’ worth of jewelry.

When everything had been done that was possible to be done in that part of the country, Mr. Fenton went back to London.  But not before he had become very familiar with the household at the Grange.  From the first he had liked and trusted Ellen Carley, deeply touched by her fidelity to Marian.  He made a point of dropping in at the Grange every evening, when not away from Crosber following up some delusive track started by his metropolitan counsellors.  He always went there with a faint hope that Ellen Carley might have something to tell him, and with a vague notion that John Holbrook might return unexpectedly, and that they two might meet in the old farm-house.  But Mr. Holbrook did not reappear, nor had Ellen any tidings for her evening visitor; though she thought of little else than Marian, and never let a day pass without making some small effort to obtain a clue to that mystery which now seemed so hopeless.  Gilbert grew to be quite at home in the little wainscoted parlour at the Grange, smoking his cigar there nightly in a tranquil contemplative mood, while Mr. Carley puffed vigorously at his long clay pipe.  There was a special charm for him in the place that had so long being Marian’s home.  He felt nearer to her, somehow, under that roof, and as if he must needs be on the right road to some discovery.  The bailiff, although prone to silence, seemed to derive considerable gratification from Mr. Fenton’s visits, and talked to that gentleman with greater freedom than he was wont to display in his intercourse with mankind.  Ellen was not always present during the whole of the evening, and in her absence the bailiff would unbosom himself to Gilbert on the subject of his daughter’s undutiful conduct; telling him what a prosperous marriage the girl might make if she had only common sense enough to see her own interests in the right light, and wasn’t the most obstinate self-willed hussy that ever set her own foolish whims and fancies against a father’s wishes.

“But a woman’s fancies sometimes mean a very deep feeling, Mr. Carley,” pleaded Gilbert; “and what worldly-wise people call a good home, is not always a happy one.  It’s a hard thing for a young woman to marry against her inclination.”