“Yes; that must be the place I want to know about.”

“It must be the Grange, surely.  It was a gentleman’s house once; but there’s only a bailiff lives there now.  The farm belongs to some gentleman down in Midlandshire, a baronet; I can’t call to mind his name at this moment, though I have heard it often enough.  Mr. Carley’s daughter—­Carley is the name of the bailiff at the Grange—­comes here for all they want.”

Gilbert gave a little start at the name of Midlandshire.  Lidford was in Midlandshire.  Was it not likely to be a Midlandshire man who had lent Marian’s husband his house?

“Do you know if these people at the Grange have had any one staying with them lately—­any lodgers?” he asked the girl.

“Yes; they have lodgers pretty well every summer.  There were some people this year, a lady and gentleman; but they never seemed to have any letters, and I can’t tell you their names.”

“Are they living there still?”

“I can’t tell you that.  I used to see them at church now and then in the summer-time; but I haven’t seen them lately.  There’s a church at Golder’s-green almost as near, and they may have been there.”

“Will you tell me what they were like?” Gilbert asked eagerly.

His heart was beating loud and fast, making a painful tumult in his breast.  He felt assured that he was on the track of the people whom the innkeeper had described to him; the people who were, in all probability, Mr. and Mrs. Holbrook.

“The lady is very pretty and very young—­quite a girl.  The gentleman older, dark, and not handsome.”

“Yes.  Has the lady gray eyes, and dark-brown hair, and a very bright expressive face?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Pray try to remember the name of the gentleman to whom the Grange belongs.  It is of great importance to me to know that.”

“I’ll ask my father, sir,” the girl answered good-naturedly; “he’s pretty sure to know.”

She went across the shop to the old man who was weighing sugar, and bawled her question into his ear.  He scratched his head in a meditative way for some moments.

“I’ve heard the name times and often,” he said, “though I never set eyes upon the gentleman.  William Carley has been bailiff at the Grange these twenty years, and I don’t believe as the owner has ever come nigh the place in all that time.  Let me see,—­it’s a common name enough, though the gentleman is a baronight.  Forster—­that’s it—­Sir something Forster.”

“Sir David?” cried Gilbert.

“You’ve hit it, sir.  Sir David Forster—­that’s the gentleman.”