that I am engaged
to Miss Nowell."

"Perfectly. I had imagined until this moment that you and she were
married. When she left Lidford, I concluded that she had gone to stay
with friends of yours, and that the marriage would, in all probability,
take place at an early period, without any strict observance of etiquette
as to her mourning for her uncle. It was natural that we should think
this, knowing her solitary position."

"Then you do not know where she went on leaving this place?"

"Not in the faintest degree. Her departure was altogether unexpected by
us. My wife and daughters called upon her two or three times after the
Captain's death, and were even anxious that she should come here to stay
for a short time; but she would not do that. She seemed grateful, and
touched by their anxiety about her, but they could not bring her to talk
of her future."

"And she told them nothing of her intention to leave Lidford?"

"Not a word."

This was all that Gilbert Fenton could learn. His interview with the
Rector lasted some time longer; but it told him nothing. Whom next could
he question? He knew all Marian's friends, and he spent the next day in
calling upon them, but with the same result; no one could tell him her
reason for leaving Hazel Cottage, or where she had gone.

There remained only one person whom he could question, and that was the
old servant who had lived with Captain Sedgewick nearly all the time of
his residence at Lidford, and whom Gilbert had conciliated by numerous
gifts during his visits to Hazel Cottage. She was a good-humoured honest
creature, of about fifty, and had been devoted to the Captain and Marian.

After a good deal of trouble, Gilbert ascertained that this woman had not
accompanied her young mistress when she left Lidford, but had taken
service in a grocer's family at Fairleigh. Having discovered this, Mr.
Fenton set off immediately for the little market-town, on foot this time,
and with his mind full of the days when he and Marian had walked this way
together.

He found the shop to which he had been directed--a roomy old-fashioned
emporium in the High-street, sunk three or four feet below the level of
the pavement, and approached by a couple of steps; a shop with a low
ceiling, that was made lower by bunches of candles, hams, bacon, and
other merchandise hanging from the massive beams that spanned it. Mr.
Fenton, having duly stated his business, was shown into the grocer's best
parl