so kind as to step inside?"

Mr. Stoneham waved his hand towards the parlour, to which apartment
Gilbert descended. Here he found Mrs. Stoneham, a meek little
sandy-haired woman, who seemed to be borne down by the weight of her
lord's dignity; and Miss Stoneham, also meek and sandy, with a great many
stiff little corkscrew ringlets budding out all over her head and a sharp
little inquiring nose.

These ladies would have retired on Gilbert's entrance, but he begged them
to remain; and after a good deal of polite hesitation they consented to
do so, Mrs. Stoneham resuming her seat before the tea-tray, and Miss
Stoneham retiring to a little table by the window, where she was engaged
in trimming a bonnet.

"I want to know all about this marriage, Mr. Stoneham," Gilbert began,
when he had seated himself in a shining mahogany arm-chair by the empty
fire-place. "First and foremost, I want you to tell me where Mr. and Mrs.
Holbrook are now living."

The parish-clerk shook his head with a stately slowness.

"Not to be done, sir," he said: "when Mr. and Mrs. Holbrook left here
they went the Lord knows where. They went away the very day they were
married. There was a fly waiting for them at the church-door, with their
luggage upon it, when the ceremony was over, ready to drive them to
Grangewick station. I saw them get into it and drive away; and that's
every mortal thing that I know as to what became of them after they were
married in yonder church."

"You don't know who this Mr. Holbrook is?"

"No more than the babe unborn, sir. He was a stranger in this place, was
only here long enough to get the license for his marriage. I should take
him to be a gentleman; but he wasn't a pleasant person to speak
to--rather stand-off-ish in his manners. He wasn't the sort of man I
should have chosen if I'd been a pretty young woman like Miss Nowell; but
there's no accounting for taste, and she seemed uncommonly fond of him. I
never saw any one more agitated than she was when they were married. She
was crying in a quiet way all through the service, and when it was over
she fainted dead-off. I daresay it did seem hard to her to be married
like that, without so much as a friend to give her away. She was in
mourning, too, deep mourning."

"Can you give me any description of this man--this Mr. Holbrook?"

"Well, no, sir: he was an ordinary kind of person to look at; might be
any age between thirty and forty; not a gentleman that I should