ad commenced; so he stayed, sorely against the grain, hoping to get a
letter by the next mail.

That came, and with the same dispiriting result to Gilbert Fenton. There
was a letter from his sister, it is true; but that was written from
Switzerland, where she was travelling with her husband, and brought him
no tidings of Marian. He tried to convince himself that if there had been
bad news, it must needs have come to him; that the delay was only the
result of accident, some mistake of Marian's as to the date of the mail.
What more natural than that she should make such a mistake, at a place
with such deficient postal arrangements as those which obtained at
Lidford? But, argue with himself as he might, this silence of his
betrothed was none the less perplexing to him, and he was a prey to
perpetual anxiety during the time that elapsed before the sailing of the
vessel that was to convey him back to England.

Then came the long monotonous voyage, affording ample leisure for gloomy
thoughts, for shapeless fears in the dead watches of the night, when the
sea washed drearily against his cabin window, and he lay broad awake
counting the hours that must wear themselves out before he could set foot
on English ground. As the time of his arrival drew nearer, his mind grew
restless and fitful, now full of hope and happy visions of his meeting
with Marian, now weighed down by the burden of some unspeakable terror.

The day dawned at last, that sultry summer day, and Gilbert was amongst
those eager passengers who quitted the vessel at daybreak.

He went straight from the quay to the railway-station, and the delay of
an hour which he had to endure here seemed almost interminable to him. As
he paced to and fro the long platform waiting for the London express, he
wondered how he had borne all the previous delay, how he had been able
to live through that dismal agonizing time. His own patience was a
mystery to him now that the ordeal was over.

The express started at last, and he sat quietly in his corner trying to
read a newspaper; while his fellow-travellers discussed the state of
trade in Liverpool, which seemed from their account to be as desperate
and hopeless as the condition of all commerce appears invariably to be
whenever commercial matters come under discussion. Gilbert Fenton was not
interested in the Liverpool trade at this particular crisis. He knew that
he had weathered the storm which had assailed his own fortunes, and t