tor, been scrupulously careful to obtain her
identification from some more trustworthy person than he knew Percival
Nowell to be.

Whether these suspicions of Gilbert's were correct, whether the lawyer
had been actually deceived, or had willingly lent himself to the
furtherance of Nowell's design, must remain, unascertained; as well as
the amount of profit which Mr. Medler may have secured to himself by the
transaction. The law held him liable for the whole of the moneys thus
paid over in fraud or error; but the law could do very little against a
man whose sole earthly possessions appeared to be comprised by the
worm-eaten desks and shabby chairs and tables in his dingy offices. The
poor consolation remained of making an attempt to get him struck off "the
Rolls;" but when the City firm of solicitors in whose hands Gilbert had
placed Mrs. Saltram's affairs suggested this. Marian herself entreated
that the man might have the benefit of the doubt as to his complicity
with her father, and that no effort should be made to bring legal ruin
upon him.

"There has been enough misery caused by this money already," she said.
"Let the matter rest. I am richer than I care to be, as it is."

Of course Mr. Medler was not allowed to retain his position as executor.
The Court of Chancery was appealed to in the usual manner, and intervened
for the future protection of Mrs. Saltram's interests.

About Nowell's conduct there was, of course, no doubt; but after wasting
a good deal of money and trouble in his pursuit, Gilbert was fain to
abandon all hope of catching him in the wide regions of the new world. It
was ascertained that the woman who had accompanied him in the _Orinoco_
as his daughter was actually his wife--a girl whom he had met at some low
London dancing-rooms, and married within a fortnight of his introduction
to her. It is possible that prudence as well as attachment may have had
something to do with this alliance. Mr. Nowell knew that, once united to
him in the bonds of holy matrimony, the accomplice of his fraud would
have no power to give evidence against him. The amount which he had
contrived to secure to himself by this plot amounted in all to something
under four thousand pounds; and out of this it may fairly be supposed
that Mr. Medler claimed a considerable percentage. The only information
that Gilbert Fenton could ever obtain from America was, of a shabby
swindler arrested in a gambling-house in one of the more re