hat
the future lay clear and bright before him.

He did not waste an hour in London, but went straight from one station to
another, and was in time to catch a train for Fairleigh, the station
nearest to Lidford. It was five o'clock in the afternoon when he arrived
at this place, and chartered a fly to take him over to Lidford--a lovely
summer afternoon. The sight of the familiar English scenery, looking so
exquisite in its summer glory, filled him with a pleasure that was almost
akin to pain. He had often walked this road with Marian; and as he drove
along he looked eagerly at every distant figure, half hoping to see his
darling approach him in the summer sunlight.

Mr. Fenton deposited his carpet-bag at the cosy village inn, where
snow-white curtains fluttered gaily at every window in the warm western
breeze, and innumerable geraniums made a gaudy blaze of scarlet against
the wooden wall. He did not stop here to make any inquiries about those
he had come to see. His heart was beating tumultuously in expectation of
the meeting that seemed so near. He alighted from the fly, dismissed the
driver, and walked rapidly across a field leading by a short cut to the
green on which Captain Sedgewick's house stood. This field brought him to
the side of the green opposite the Captain's cottage. He stopped for a
moment as he came through the little wooden gate, and looked across the
grass, where a regiment of geese was marching towards the still pool of
willow-shadowed water.

The shutters of the upper rooms were closed, and there was a board above
the garden-gate. The cottage was to be let.

Gilbert Fenton's heart gave one great throb, and then seemed to cease
beating altogether. He walked across the green slowly, stunned by this
unlooked-for blow. Yes, the house was empty. The garden, which he
remembered in such exquisite order, had a weedy dilapidated look that
seemed like the decay of some considerable time. He rang the bell several
times, but there was no answer; and he was turning away from the gate
with the stunned confused feeling still upon him, unable to consider what
he ought to do next, when he heard himself called by his name, and saw a
woman looking at him across the hedge of the neighbouring garden.

"Were you wishing to make any inquiries about the last occupants of Hazel
Cottage, sir?" she asked.

"Yes," Gilbert answered huskily, looking at her in an absent unseeing
way.

He had seen her often during his vis