e and an air of extreme solicitude.

"Very much as you see him now. He has mentioned a name once or twice, the
name of Marian. Have you ever heard that?"

"I should say I have, sir, times and often since he's been ill. 'Marian,
why don't you come to me?' so pitiful; and then, 'Lost, lost!' in such a
awful wild way. I think it must be some favourite sister, sir, or a young
lady as he has kep' company with."

"Marian!" cried the voice from the bed, as if their cautious talk had
penetrated to that dim brain. "Marian! O no, no; she is gone; I have lost
her! Well, I wished it; I wanted my freedom."

Gilbert started, and stood transfixed, looking intently at the
unconscious speaker. Yes, here was the clue to the mystery. John Saltram
had grown tired of his stolen bride--had sighed for his freedom. Who
should say that he had not taken some iniquitous means to rid himself of
the tie that had grown troublesome to him?

Gilbert Fenton remembered Ellen Carley's suspicions. He was no longer
inclined to despise them.

It was dreary work to sit by the bedside watching that familiar face, to
which fever and delirium had given a strange weird look; dismal work to
count the moments, and wonder when that voice, now so thick of utterance
as it went on muttering incoherent sentences and meaningless phrases,
would be able to reply to those questions which Gilbert Fenton was
burning to ask.

Was it a guilty conscience, the dull slow agony of remorse, which had
stricken this man down--this strong powerfully-built man, who was a
stranger to illness and all physical suffering? Was the body only crushed
by the burden of the mind? Gilbert could not find any answer to these
questions. He only knew that his sometime friend lay there helpless,
unconscious, removed beyond his reach as completely as if he had been
lying in his coffin.

"O God, it is hard to bear!" he said half aloud: "it is a bitter trial to
bear. If this illness should end in death, I may never know Marian's
fate."

He sat in the sick man's room all through that long dismal afternoon,
waiting to see the doctor, and with the same hopeless thoughts repeating
themselves perpetually in his mind.

It was nearly eight o'clock when Mr. Mew at last made his evening visit.
He was a grave gray-haired little man, with a shrewd face and a pleasant
manner; a man who inspired Gilbert with confidence, and whose presence
was cheering in a sick-room; but he did not speak very hopefully of