m."

"She might have such reasons with regard to other people; she could have
none with reference to me."

"Pardon me, she mentioned your name in a very particular manner."

"And yet she has had good cause to trust in my fidelity."

"She has a very great respect and esteem for you, I am aware. She said as
much to me. But her reasons for keeping her affairs to herself just now
are quite apart from her personal feeling for yourself."

"I cannot understand this. I am not to see her then, I suppose; not to be
told her address?"

"No; I am strictly forbidden to disclose her address to any one."

"Yet you can positively assure me that she is in safety--her own
mistress--happy?"

"She is in perfect safety--her own mistress--and as happy as it is
possible she can be under the unfortunate circumstances of her married
life. She has left her husband for ever; I will venture to tell you so
much as that."

"I am quite aware of that fact."

"How so? I thought Mr. Holbrook was quite unknown to you?"

"I have learnt a good deal about him lately."

"Indeed!" exclaimed the lawyer, with a genuine air of surprise.

"But of course your client has been perfectly frank in her communications
with you upon this subject?" Gilbert said.

"Yes; I know that Mrs. Holbrook has left her husband, but I did not for a
moment suppose she had left him of her own free will. From my knowledge
of her character and sentiments, that is just the last thing I could have
imagined possible. There was no quarrel between them; indeed, she was
expecting his return with delight at the very time when she left her home
in Hampshire. The thought of sharing her fortune with him was one of
perfect happiness. How can you explain her abrupt flight from him in the
face of this?"

"I am not free to explain matters, Mr. Fenton," answered the lawyer; "you
must be satisfied with the knowledge that the lady about whom you have
been so anxious is safe."

"I thank God for that," Gilbert said earnestly; "but that, knowledge of
itself is not quite enough. I shall be uneasy so long as there is this
secrecy and mystery surrounding her fate. There is something in this
sudden abandonment of her husband which is painfully inexplicable to me."

"Mrs. Holbrook may have received some sudden revelation of her husband's
unworthiness. You are aware that a letter reached her a few hours before
she left Hampshire? There is no doubt that letter influenced her actions.
I do not m