Sir David Forster
declared it to be! God grant that I may never find a secret enemy in
John Saltram!"

Tossed about thus upon a sea of doubts, Mr. Fenton returned to Lidford
House, where he was expected to be bright and cheerful, and entertain his
host and hostess with the freshest gossip of the London world. He did
make a great effort to keep up a show of cheerfulness at the
dinner-table; but he felt that his sister's eyes were watching him with a
pitiless scrutiny, and he knew that the attempt was an ignominious
failure.

When honest Martin was snoring in his easy-chair before the drawing-room
fire, with the red light shining full upon his round healthy countenance,
Mrs. Lister beckoned her brother over to her side of the hearth, where
she had an embroidery-frame, whereon was stretched some grand design in
Berlin wool-work, to which she devoted herself every now and then with a
great show of industry. She had been absorbed in a profound calculation
of the stitches upon the canvas and on the coloured pattern before her
until this moment; but she laid aside her work with a solemn air when
Gilbert went over to her, and he knew at once what was coming.

"Sit down, Gilbert," she said; and her brother dropped into a chair by
her side with a faint sigh of resignation. "I want to talk to you
seriously, as a sister ought to talk to a brother, without any fear of
offending. I'm very sorry to see you have not yet forgotten that wicked
ungrateful girl Marian Nowell."

"Who told you that I have not forgotten her?"

"Your own face, Gilbert. It's no use for you to put on a pretence of
being cheerful and light-hearted with me. I know you too well to be
deceived by that kind of thing--I could see how absent-minded you were
all dinner-time, in spite of your talk. You can't hoodwink an
affectionate sister."

"I don't wish to hoodwink you, my dear," Mr. Fenton answered quietly, "or
to affect a happiness which I do not feel, any more than I wish to make a
parade of my grief. It is natural for an Englishman to be reticent on
such matters; but I do not mind owning to you that Marian Nowell is
unforgotten by me, and that the loss of her will have an enduring
influence upon my life; and having said as much as that, Belle, I must
request that you will not expatiate any more upon this poor girl's breach
of faith. I have forgiven her long ago, and I shall always regard her as
the purest and dearest of women."

"What! you can hold her u