ife!"

But his suspicions were not to be put away, not to be driven out of his
mind, let him argue against them as he might. He resolved, therefore,
that as soon as he should have made every effort and taken every possible
means towards the recovery of the missing girl, he would make it his
business next to bring this thing home to John Saltram, or acquit him for
ever.

It is needless to dwell upon that weary work, which seemed destined to
result in nothing but disappointment. The local constabulary and the
London police alike exerted all their powers to obtain some trace of
Marian Holbrook's lost footsteps; but no clue to the painful mystery was
to be found. From the moment when she vanished from the eyes of the
servant-woman watching her departure from the Grange gate, she seemed to
have disappeared altogether from the sight of mankind. If by some
witchcraft she had melted into the dim autumnal mist that hung about the
river-bank, she could not have left less trace, or vanished more
mysteriously than she had done. The local constabulary gave in very soon,
in spite of Gilbert Fenton's handsome payment in the present, and noble
promises of reward in the future. The local constabulary were honest and
uninventive. They shook their heads gloomily, and said "Drownded."

"But the river has been dragged," Gilbert cried eagerly, "and there has
been nothing found."

He shuddered at the thought of that which might have been hauled to shore
in the foul weedy net. The face he loved, changed, disfigured, awful--the
damp clinging hair.

"Holes," replied the chief of the local constabulary, sententiously;
"there's holes in that there river where you might hide half a dozen
drownded men, and never hope to find 'em, no more than if they was at the
bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Lord bless your heart, sir, you Londoners
don't know what a river is, in a manner of speaking," added the man, who
was most likely unacquainted with the existence of the Thames, compared
with which noble stream this sluggish Hampshire river was the veriest
ditch. "I've known a many poor creatures drownded in that river, and
never one of 'em to come to light--not that the river was dragged for
_them_. Their friends weren't of the dragging class, they weren't."

The London police were more hopeful and more delusive. They were always
hearing of some young lady newly arrived at some neighbouring town or
village who seemed to answer exactly to the description of