an by this
iniquitous conduct? You only obtained my consent to your hurried
departure the other day on condition you should come back in a
week, yet there are no signs of you. Foljambe and the lawyer are
gone, and I am alone with Harker, whose stupidity is something
marvellous. I am dying by inches of this dismal state of things. I
can't tell the man to go, you see, for he is really a most worthy
creature, although such a consummate fool. For pity's sake come to
me. You can do your literary work down here as well as in London,
and I promise to respect your laborious hours.--Ever yours,

"DAVID FORSTER."

John Saltram stood with this letter open in his hand, staring blankly at
it, like a man lost in a dream.

"Go back!" he muttered at last--"go back, when I thought I did such a
great thing in coming away! No, I am not weak enough for that folly."

CHAPTER VIII.

MISSING.

On the 5th of July in the following year, Gilbert Fenton landed in
England, after nearly ten months of exile. He had found hard work to do
in the colonial city, and had done it; surmounting every difficulty by a
steady resolute course of action.

Astley Fenton had tried to shelter his frauds, heaping falsehood upon
falsehood; and had ended by making a full confession, after receiving his
cousin's promise not to prosecute. The sums made away with by him
amounted to some thousands. Gilbert found that he had been leading a life
of reckless extravagance, and was a notorious gambler. So there came an
evening when after a prolonged investigation of affairs, Astley Fenton
put on his hat, and left his cousin's office for ever. When Gilbert heard
of him next, he was clerk to a bookseller in Sydney.

The disentanglement of the Melbourne trading had occupied longer than
Gilbert expected; and his exile had been especially dreary to him during
the last two months he spent in Australia, from the failure of his
English letters. The first two mails after his arrival had brought him
letters from Marian and her uncle, and one short note from John Saltram.
The mails that followed brought him nothing, and he was inexpressibly
alarmed and distressed by this fact. If he could by any possibility have
returned to England immediately after the arrival of the first mail which
brought him no letter, he would have done so. But his journey would have
been wasted had he not remained to complete the work of reorganization he
h