le.

But though Mr. Fenton told himself at one moment that this was
impossible, his thoughts travelled back to the same point immediately
afterwards, and the image of John Saltram arose before him as that of his
hidden foe. He remembered the long autumn days which he and his friend
had spent with Marian--those unclouded utterly happy days, which he
looked back upon now with a kind of wonder. They had been so much
together, Marian so bright and fascinating in her innocent enjoyment of
the present, brighter and happier just then than she had ever seemed to
him before, Gilbert remembered with a bitter pang. He had been completely
unsuspicious at the time, untroubled by one doubtful thought; but it
appeared to him now that there had been a change in Marian from the time
of his friend's coming--a new joyousness and vivacity, a keener delight
in the simple pleasures of their daily life, and withal a fitfulness, a
tendency to change from gaiety to thoughtful silence, that he had not
remarked in her before.

Was it strange if John Saltram had fallen in love with her? was it
possible to see her daily in all the glory of her girlish loveliness,
made doubly bewitching by the sweetness of her nature, the indescribable
charm of her manner--was it possible to be with her often, as John
Saltram had been, and not love her? Gilbert Fenton had thought of his
friend as utterly impregnable to any such danger; as a man who had spent
all his stock of tender emotion long ago, and who looked upon matrimony
as a transaction by which he might mend his broken fortunes. That this
man should fall a victim to the same subtle charm which had subjugated
himself, was a possibility that never occurred to Gilbert's mind, in this
happy period of his existence. He wanted his friend's approval of his
choice; he wished to see his passion justified in the eyes of the man
whom it was his habit to regard in somewise as a superior creature; and
it had been a real delight to him to hear Mr. Saltram's warm praises of
Marian.

Looking back at the past to-day from a new point of view, he wondered at
his own folly. What was more natural than that John Saltram should have
found his doom, as he had found it, unthought of, undreamed of, swift,
and fatal? Nor was it difficult for him to believe that Marian--who had
perhaps never really loved him, who had been induced to accept him by his
own pertinacity and her uncle's eager desire for the match--should find a
charm a