ne see her face! it's Mrs. Holbrook."

CHAPTER XLIV.

AFTER THE FIRE.

Yes, it was Marian. She whom Gilbert Fenton had sought so long and
patiently, with doubt and anguish in his heart; she whose double John
Saltram had followed across the Atlantic, had been within easy reach of
them all the time, hidden away in that dreary old farm-house, the
innocent victim of Percival Nowell's treachery, and Stephen Whitelaw's
greed of gain. The whole story was told by-and-by, when the master of
Wyncomb Farm lay dying.

William Carley and his daughter took her to the Grange as soon as the
farmer's spring cart was ready to convey her thither. It was all done
very quickly, and none of the farm-servants saw her face. Even if they
had done so, it is more than doubtful that they would have recognised
her, so pale a shadow of her former self had she become during that long
dreary imprisonment; the face wan and wasted, with a strange sharpened
look about the features which was like the aspect of death; all the
brightness and colour vanished out of the soft brown hair; an ashen
pallor upon her beauty, that made her seem like a creature risen from the
grave.

They lifted her into the cart, still insensible, and seated her there,
wrapped in an old horse-cloth, with her head resting on Mrs. Whitelaw's
shoulder; and so they drove slowly away. It was only when they had gone
some little distance from the farm, that the fresh morning air revived
her, and she opened her eyes and looked about her, wildly at first, and
with a faint shuddering sigh.

Then, after a few moments, full consciousness came back to her, and a
sudden cry of rapture broke from the pale lips. "O God!" she exclaimed,
"am I set free?"

"Yes, dear Mrs. Holbrook, you are free, never again to go back to that
cruel place. O, to think that you should be used so, and I so near!"

Marian lifted her head from Ellen's shoulder, and recognised her with a
second cry of delight.

"Ellen, is it you? Then I am safe; I must be safe with you."

"Safe! yes, dear. I would die sooner than any harm should come to you
again. Who could have brought this cruelty about? who could have shut you
up in that room?"

"My father," Marian answered with a shudder. "He wanted my money, I
suppose; and instead of killing me, he shut me up in that place."

She said no more just then, being too weak to say much; and Ellen, who
was employed in soothing and comforting her, did not want her to tal