you may spend your money as it
was so much water, but set eyes upon that missing lady you never will;
take my word for it, or don't take my word for it, as you please."

Gilbert wondered at the man's earnestness. Did he really feel some kind
of benevolent interest in the fate of a helpless woman, or was it only a
vulgar love of the marvellous and horrible that moved him? Gilbert leaned
to the latter opinion, and was by no means inclined to give Stephen
Whitelaw credit for any surplus stock of benevolence. He saw a good deal
more of Ellen Carley's suitor in the course of his evening visits to the
Grange, and had ample opportunity for observing Mr. Whitelaw's mode of
courtship, which was by no means of the demonstrative order, consisting
in a polite silence towards the object of his affections, broken only by
one or two clumsy but florid compliments, delivered in a deliberate but
semi-jocose manner. The owner of Wyncomb Farm had no idea of making hard
work of his courtship. He had been angled for by so many damsels, and
courted by so many fathers and mothers, that he fancied he had but to say
the word when the time came, and the thing would be done. Any evidence of
avoidance, indifference, or even dislike upon Ellen Carley's part,
troubled him in the smallest degree. He had heard people talk of young
Randall's fancy for her, and of her liking for him, but he knew that her
father meant to set his heel upon any nonsense of this kind; and he did
not for a moment imagine it possible that any girl would resolutely
oppose her father's will, and throw away such good fortune as he could
offer her--to ride in her own chaise-cart, and wear a silk gown always on
Sundays, to say nothing of a gold watch and chain; and Mr. Whitelaw meant
to endow his bride with a ponderous old-fashioned timepiece and heavy
brassy-looking cable which had belonged to his mother.

CHAPTER XXIX.

BAFFLED, NOT BEATEN.

The time came when Gilbert Fenton was fain to own to himself that there
was no more to be done down in Hampshire: professional science and his
own efforts had been alike futile. If she whom he sought still lived--and
he had never for a moment suffered himself to doubt this--it was more
than likely that she was far away from Crosber Grange, that there had
been some motive for her sudden flight, unaccountable as that flight
might seem in the absence of any clue to the mystery.

Every means of inquiry being exhausted in Hampshire, th