band would have sometimes to leave her to attend to his business in
London; but she would not mind that. 'Some day, I daresay, he will let me
live in London with him,' she said; 'but I don't like to ask him that
yet.'"

"Did she drop no hint as to the whereabouts of this place to which they
were going?"

"It was somewhere in Hampshire; that is all I can remember."

"I would give a great deal to know more," Gilbert said with a sigh. "In
what manner did this Mr. Holbrook impress you? You were interested in the
young lady, and would therefore naturally be interested in her lover. Did
he strike you as worthy of her?"

"_I_ cannot say that he did, sir," Miss Long answered doubtfully. "I
could see that he had great power over her, though his manner to her was
always very gentle; but I cannot say that I took to him myself. I daresay
he is a very clever man; but he had a cold proud way that kept one at a
distance from him, and I seemed to know no more of him at the last than I
had known on the first day I saw him. I believe he loved Miss Nowell, and
that's about all the good I do believe of him."

After this, there was no more to be asked of Miss Long; so Gilbert
thanked her for her civility, and bade good evening at once to her and to
Miss Stoneham. There was time for him to catch the last coach to
Grangewick station. He determined upon going from Grangewick to Lidford,
instead of returning to London. He wanted, if possible, to find out
something more about this man Holbrook, who must surely have been known
to some one at Lidford during his secret courtship of Marian Nowell.

He wasted two days at Lidford, making inquiries on this subject, in as
quiet a manner as possible and in every imaginable quarter; but without
the slightest result. No one either at Lidford or Fairleigh had ever
heard of Mr. Holbrook.

Gilbert's last inquiries were made in a singular direction. After
exhausting every likely channel of information, he had a few hours left
before the departure of the fast train by which he had determined to
return to London; and this leisure he devoted to a visit to Heatherly
Park, in the chance of finding Sir David Forster at home. It was just
possible that Mr. Holbrook might be one of Sir David's innumerable
bachelor acquaintances.

Gilbert walked from Lidford to Heatherly by that romantic woodland path
by which he had gone with Marian and her uncle on the bright September
afternoon when he first saw Sir David's