emen, and saw no one except the Rector's family
and two or three ladies after the uncle's death."

"Not at the cottage, perhaps. But she may have seen some one
out-of-doors. You say she always went out alone at that time, and
preferred to do so."

"Yes, sir, that is true. But it seemed natural enough that she should
like to be alone on account of her grief."

"There must have been some reason for her silence towards me, Sarah. She
could not have acted so cruelly without some powerful motive. Heaven only
knows what it may have been. The business of my life will be to find
her--to see her face to face once more, and hear the explanation of her
conduct from her own lips."

He thanked the woman for her information, slipped a sovereign into her
hand, and departed. He called upon the proprietor of Hazel Cottage, an
auctioneer, surveyor, and house-agent in the High-street of Fairleigh,
but could obtain no fresh tidings from this gentleman, except the fact
that the money realised by the Captain's furniture had been sent to Miss
Nowell at a post-office in the City, and had been duly acknowledged by
her, after a delay of about a week. The auctioneer showed Gilbert the
letter of receipt, which was worded in a very formal business-like
manner, and bore no address but "London." The sight of the familiar hand
gave him a sharp pang. O God, how he had languished for a letter in that
handwriting!

He had nothing more to do after this in the neighbourhood of Lidford,
except to pay a pious visit to the Captain's grave, where a handsome slab
of granite recorded the virtues of the dead. It lay in the prettiest,
most retired part of the churchyard, half-hidden under a wide-spreading
yew. Gilbert Fenton sat down upon a low wall near at hand for a long
time, brooding over his broken life, and wishing himself at rest beneath
that solemn shelter.

"She never loved me," he said to himself bitterly. "I shut my eyes
obstinately to the truth, or I might have discovered the secret of her
indifference by a hundred signs and tokens. I fancied that a man who
loved a woman as I loved her must succeed in winning her heart at last.
And I accepted her girlish trust in me, her innocent gratitude for my
attentions, as the evidence of her love. Even at the last, when she
wanted to release me, I would not understand. I did not expect to be
loved as I loved her. I would have given so much, and been content to
take so little. What is there I would not have